


Ghost Kid

by DeckofDragons



Series: Ghost Kid [1]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Dadcher, Gen, Ghost Hat Kid, Hat Kid dies in fic and becomes a ghost, Hat Kid wants to be like Snatcher, Hurt/Comfort, It gets pretty morbid in a few places too, Some Fluff, Talk of Hat Kid's Past, Talk of Snatcher's Past, Time Travel, ghost kid, tags to be updated as I go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 44,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: After an unfortunate accident leaves Hat Kid a ghost, she's at a loss for what to do. Snatcher takes her in.
Relationships: Hat Kid & Mustache Girl (A Hat in Time), Hat Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time), Moonjumper & Mustache Girl (A Hat in Time)
Series: Ghost Kid [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824031
Comments: 368
Kudos: 688





	1. Hat Kid's Ship

**Author's Note:**

> All right, first of all, as you should already know, Hat Kid dies in this fic. I'm as vague as I can be about it because writing about a child dying is something that would make me uncomfortable if I had to do it explicitly. The way she dies is the only way I could come up with that would let me be vague about the exact moment of her death and about her corpse.
> 
> Second, this is the first long fic I've written in a long while. It's not even done yet despite being close to 20k words and I'm pretty sure the ending is not all that close. I don't know how it's going to end either, I'm a discovery writer so I'm just making this up as I go. But that means it might end up being meandering and possibly without a 100% satisfying conclusion. Hopefully not but it's happened before. Just think about it like you're going on this journey with me.

Sneaking aboard Hat Kid’s ship was even easier than Mustache Girl had thought it’d be. She was tempted to revel in the moment and trash the place, break the TV playing dorky music, steal the cute little disk thing that roved around the room – it was a fancy vacuum, right? – graffiti her signature ‘Mu was here’ on one of the walls. But alas, she couldn’t. According to her source, Hat Kid should be busy doing a difficult contract _thing_ with the big bad ghost from Subcon Forest that ate people’s souls – rumor had it they were _friends_ , BFF’s even, as little sense as that made – and there was no telling when she might return. Meaning Mu had to be quick to ensure she wouldn’t be interrupted.

Thankfully, there was big door that was obviously some kind of vault on the second floor that was impossible to miss. That _had_ to be where Hat Kid stored the Time Pieces. The large screen next to it with a Time Piece depicted on it alongside some numbers basically confirmed that theory.

Mu jogged over and scampered up the ladder, putting her right in front of it. She was going to show those Mafia peck-necks who’s boss. She was going to make sure they never…

The vault was locked. _Of course_ it was locked. It not being locked would’ve been extremely dumb on Hat Kid’s part.

Mu glanced around. Where might the key be? … There was a good chance Hat Kid had it. If so, Mu’s plan had just become that much more complicated. But before she went and started readying for a pickpocketing heist, she should look around the ship. It was possible Hat Kid wanted to keep the key safe while she searched for Time Pieces and did whatever it was she was doing with her supposed ghost friend. So, a search of the ship was warranted. Mu would have to be fast though.

She went back down the ladder, jumping off halfway down. She’d start with the room furthest to her left – the ship’s right – and make her way through. Hopefully it wasn’t a large ship. She ran over to the door, if it was locked she was going to lose her mind. … It wasn’t, in fact it automatically opened for her, thank goodness.

“Hey!”

Mu jumped and snapped around. Hat Kid had returned and now stood next to the ship’s command deck. The dirt on her now slightly tattered clothes and on her face suggested she’d indeed been doing something strenuous. Naturally she looked pissed, glaring at Mu with her arms crossed and foot tapping.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Mu said, stepping away from the door, making it close, and getting herself closer to Hat Kid. Maybe pickpocketing would be her first resort after all.

Hat Kid’s gaze narrowed as Mu kept inching closer. “What is it then?”

“I came to apologize. I was a bit too harsh last time we spoke and…”

“And you stole from me.” Hat Kid pulled out her umbrella to point right in Mu’s face, stopping her from getting any closer. “ _And_ you want to use the Time Pieces for bad things.”

“It’s _not_ bad things! It’s _good_ things! I want to stop the Mafia and _save_ everyone. _You’re_ the one who’s bad for not helping me.”

Hat Kid opened her mouth to make a reply but bit back on it. Instead she took a deep breath and lowered her umbrella with an obvious effort. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Messing with time travel is never a good idea even when you only have good intentions.”

To think Mu had once thought Hat Kid would help her stop the Mafia. She’d been wrong of course, no one _ever_ wanted to help her. “You’re just making excuses to be selfish, just like everybody else.”

“And you’re being kind of a peck-neck so kindly stop and get off my ship please. I’m tired and not in the mood to deal with you right now.”

Mu pushed her. It was a light push, a thoughtless action born of frustration and anger. But it seemed to be the final straw as the anger in Hat Kid’s expression broke through. She pushed back, harder, almost knocking Mu off her feet. With a growl, Mu retaliated and shoved Hat Kid as _hard_ as she possibly could, putting all her righteous fury behind it. She hit the ship’s command console with a thud and a small yelp. She immediately shoved herself off of it, launching herself at Mu. The ship made some sounds – whatever she’d inadvertently pressed when hitting and shoving off had activated it. Neither of them paid it any mind though as they fell into their brawl.

Punching, slapping, kicking, hair pulling, even some biting, all the hallmarks of two children fighting on a playground. Though there was some smashing of faces into the conveniently placed command desk too. It didn’t take long for Mu to realize her advantage, Hat Kid _was_ tired, whatever she’d been doing before had clearly taken a lot out of her as she quickly grew visibly exhausted. She didn’t give up though and gave almost as good as she got, if this were a fight on even footing, she would’ve won. It wasn’t though so Mu had a chance and she was going to take _full_ advantage of it.

She had Hat Kid on the floor and was rearing back to deliver a strong face punch when Hat Kid suddenly froze, her eyes locking onto something behind Mu.

“The ship’s moving,” she said with enough urgency and fear to make Mu pause.

Should she turn around to look out the window and check? It could be a trap though. But the pause was more than enough for Hat Kid to take advantage of. Instead of attacking like she would’ve done if it was a ruse, she pushed Mu off and scrambled back and got unsteadily to her feet so she could rush for the ship’s controls. At the same time, the ship’s alarms went off, blaring loud as the red light flashed. Instead of “Intruder alert” – like Mu had heard last time she’d heard the alarm system go off – the robotic voice over the intercom said, “Brace for impact, prepare for crash landing.”


	2. Crash Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this fic, all the Death Wish Contracts involving Mu are not a thing because obviously things with her didn't go down the way they did in the game, this is happening instead (technically making it an AU I think). But I still wanted Hat Kid to be one Death Wish away from getting the shadow puppet costume because this fic is inspired by it.

Snatcher was quite proud of himself as he put down his knitting needles to look at his finished creation. It was probably the best thing he’d ever knitted. It would be the perfect reward for when Hat Kid finished his final Death Wish Contract. … _If_ she finished it. He was not at all hoping that she would, in fact he hoped for the opposite, he wanted her to fail and die so he could jump in and snatch her soul as it left her body. He’d made this cool new outfit for her on the off chance she did win; she’d defied his expectations enough times now that he’d learned to always be ready for it.

He folded the costume up and put it away in his pocket dimension for now. But now that that was finally finished, he could get back to his reading. He summoned one of his books to himself and…

There was a loud _crash_ as the whole world shook as if struck by an intense earthquake. It was over within a matter of seconds but it left everything in his hollow that wasn’t secure scattered on the floor

“Boss!” one of his minions distressed calls came from outside. “Boss!”

“Calm down, we’re fine now,” Snatcher said as he exited. He looked around to find his minion struggling to stand back up, using a glowing mushroom for support.

“What was that?” the minion asked, looking up at him for reassurance. “Do think it was… _her_.”

“No.” Normally when _she_ decided to bring the forest’s attention back to herself it involved her wretched ice magic and this certainly wasn’t that. Besides, whatever it had been had tripped one his traps in the burning part of the forest, while his distant sense of _her_ had not moved. He needed to investigate but first…

He teleported to Subcon Village, bringing his minion with him. As expected, it was in disarray. The water in the pond was already draining, whatever had happened had clogged up the well again – it was a real pain in the neck sometimes – and a couple of the bridges connecting treehouses had fallen over. And of course, everyone was panicking. They were predictable, anytime something large and unexpected happened in the forest he could count of them to freak out about it.

“Calm down everyone,” he shouted loud enough for them all to hear. They immediately stilled and turned to face him. “It’s fine and has nothing to do with you know who. I’m going to go find out what happened, you guys start repairs and make sure everyone knows its fine.” He’d have to get a contractor to fix the well again and possibly help out with repairs but that could wait until later.

Before any questions could be asked of him, he teleported again. This time to the trap that had been tripped. The woods, already perpetually burning, were suddenly even _more_ on fire. There was big crater near where his trap used to be. Something large had crashed onto the forest floor and slid a short distance, destroying the ground, every tree in its path, and the trap. That ‘something large’ was Hat Kid’s ship.

Snatcher rushed over to get a better look. It was a _wreck_ : the metal making up its outside crumpled especially at the front and bottom, parts of it were bent or broken, and the entire front facing glass window was shattered, its bits scattered across the initial site of impact, reflecting the fires surrounding them. Snatcher had no way of knowing if it was mostly just surface damage or if the important parts of the ship had been damaged too. Nor did he really care right now.

He entered through the broken window. The interior lights were all out and it rested at an odd angle. Bits of broken glass from the window littered the floor as well as broken pieces of furniture. But the command desk at the front, though cracked was clearly built to last as it was mostly still intact. Underneath it lay two small bodies, one partially on top of the other. But… Snatcher only sensed one living soul, it was weak but there. Meaning…

He moved closer to pull the body on top out. … It was Mustache Girl, he’d heard enough about her to know what she looked like and that Hat Kid didn’t like her and that was it. … She was alive. Injured and unconscious, in need of medical attention, but still alive. Which meant…

Hat Kid was the other body. Snatcher didn’t need his ability to sense living beings to know she was no longer among them.

How was that _possible_? It was _Hat Kid_ , there were times when she seemed almost immortal. She’d done and been through _so_ many dangerous and difficult situations, how could she just _die_? It didn’t make _sense_! After everything she’d been through and done it was… _such a waste_. This was…

“Snatcher?”

He snapped around to see… a ghost. Glowing yellow eyes and mouth, small purple body tapering off into a tail instead of legs. The shape of her cape, complete with the zipper on front, and top hat remained. Well, Subcon Forest was the place one was most likely to become a ghost if they died here so… this made sense. Sort of, it was still unbelievable that Hat Kid had _died_.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice now slightly echoey. “And why are the lights all off? What happened?” … She hadn’t realized what happened to her yet… not good.

“Hey Kid.” Snatcher put on a grin. “How’s it going?”

“Uh… I don’t know. I feel weird. Is… something wrong? What’s that behind you?”

Snatcher moved to block the view of her body as she tiled her head to try to look past him. “Maybe don’t look kiddo, it’s uh… not a pretty sight.”

She frowned and only tried harder to look past him. There wasn’t much he could do, he’d had to shrink is form to fit in here. Her gaze locked first on Mu but then quickly moved to her body. Shock and dismay filled her now ghostly features. She lifted her hands to look down at them and then back up at him. “I-I’m _dead_.”

“Yep uh… looks like it.” Snatcher still had on his forced grin. “But being dead ain’t so bad. It’s actually kind of nice sometimes. I’m a disappointed though that I wasn’t here to…” he trailed off as Hat Kid let out a loud sob. It was immediately followed by another as she curled up into a ball of misery. He’d never seen her cry before and he didn’t know how to handle tears.

He turned away and summoned a small group of his minions, hopefully they hadn’t been doing anything important. “Deal with this,” he whispered to them, gesturing to Hat Kid’s corpse and the injured Mu. They gasped in horror at the sight, at this point Hat Kid had befriended seemingly everyone in the forest – excluding Snatcher of course, he wasn’t her friend no matter what she said.

“Boss…” one of them began.

“And do it fast,” Snatcher interrupted.

They nodded firmly. “What do you want us to do with…” one of them pointed to Mu.

“I don’t care, just _handle it_.”

Before they could say anything else, Snatcher snapped back around to face Hat Kid again because he had to handle _this_ now. She was still crying, very upset and rightfully so, seeing one’s own broken corpse was _not_ a pleasant experience. It being sudden and unexpected had to have only made it worse. She’d never cried before though, no matter what he or anyone else put her through, she’d always taken it like a champ. That only made her tears more stressful, he _needed_ them to stop.

“Hey kiddo,” he said in the closest he could get to a soothing tone as he moved closer to hover in front of her. “Look, I know it’s hard but could you please not…”

She grasped onto his mane. From there, she shifted to crying _on_ him. “I don’t want to be dead. I was going to go home.”

Awkwardly, Snatcher lifted an arm to lightly pat her back because _what else could he do_? How was he supposed to get her stop crying? There had to be _a way_ , right? … Getting her _away_ from the reason she was crying would probably be a good start, right?

Bringing her with him, he teleported to one of his reading spots, the one that had no physical access to the outside world and was thus private. He quickly righted the lamp and sat on the chair. He patted Hat Kid’s back again in hopes that that would _maybe_ help. He _really_ had no idea though and she was gripping his mane too hard to for him to easily free himself of her so… seems like he could only wait and hope the tears stopped soon.


	3. Death

Hat Kid eventually cried herself out, leaving her feeling empty and drained on top of the whole _ghost_ feeling. But… better too, not good but still better. She couldn’t remember ever having cried that hard or long before and wouldn’t have thought she could. The realization of her death and the sight of her own broken _corpse_ though had been _horrifying_. Just thinking about it made her feel a little nauseous.

“You done crying kiddo?” Snatcher asked. “If so, can you _stop_ touching me now?”

Hat Kid let of go of neck fur thing but didn’t move all the way away yet. He’d actually let her cry on him and he’d comforted her. Even knowing that he cared more than he let on, she _never_ would’ve expected him to be there for her like that. “I uh… thank you.” She sniffled.

“ _Please_ never do that again. It was _awful_.”

Under better circumstances Hat Kid would’ve been amused by him going _right_ back to being a big grumpy ‘soon-deh-ray’. But… “I don’t want to be dead,” she said as she moved back instead to look up at him.

He was frowning but his expression softened at her words. “I know. But… you’ll get used to it eventually… probably sooner than you expect.”

Hat Kid sniffled again as she wiped her tears away with the heel of her hand. She looked around. They were in one of his tree hollows that he liked to read in. This one had no exits though; she hadn’t known he had one like that. But he must’ve moved them and she hadn’t noticed.

“What happened?” she asked, looking at Snatcher again.

“You died and I unfortunately did not arrive in time to snatch your soul so instead you became a ghost and now your soul is sadly forever lost to me. But… seriously though kid, after my normal contracts, everything everyone else put you through, all but _one_ of my Death Wish contracts, you die like _that_? _How_?”

That was a good question. “It’s Mustache Girl’s fault!” Hat Kid had thought she’d hated her before but that was _nothing_ compared to how she felt about Mu now. “She broke into my ship and was being a pecking _peck-neck_. We fought and she pushed me into the pecking command desk and I guess… started the ship moving or something and… _ah_!” If she still had feet, she’d be stomping one right now, the fact that she didn’t only made her madder. “ _I hate her_!”

Snatcher chuckled. “Well, good to see you still have some fighting spirit in you.”

Hat Kid took a deep breath … sort of anyway, she didn’t really have lungs anymore and didn’t need to breath so it felt really weird. But it still helped center her and pull her anger back somewhat – at least anger at Mu was better than the despair of being dead though, right? “Where’s my ship?” Presumably it had landed somewhere in Subcon Forest, otherwise Snatcher wouldn’t have been the first thing she saw upon opening her eyes as a ghost.

“I’ll take you to it.” The world shifted to deep purple before shifting back, revealing that they were in the burning part of the forest now. It seemed to be burning even more than the last time Hat Kid had been here.

Her ship was right in the middle of it. It was… in bad shape. The entire front window was shattered, the bottom part of the ship was crumpled and broken, there wasn’t any area on the ship that _didn’t_ look damaged.

She rushed inside, the sensation of moving without legs a weird one but it didn’t seem to hinder her any. She went right to the vault. _Thankfully_ , it was still intact; it was designed to protect the Time Pieces no matter how bad the turbulence so none of them should’ve broken. But… that was of small condolence; the ship may still have the fuel to fly but it was very possibly too damaged to.

Hat Kid put her hands over his mouth to help bite back another sob of despair. It _maybe_ wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe she could fix it. And if she _really_ had to, she could use the Time Pieces to fix it. Though sadly, they wouldn’t change the fact that she was a ghost; they’d just pull her back in time as she was now. But… using them even to fix the ship was potentially very dangerous _and_ against the code she’d agreed to follow to gain use of them.

As she turned back around, her eyes gravitated to the command desk. _Thankfully_ , her body was no longer under it, where it might now be, she didn’t even care as long as she did not have to see it again. Mu’s body was missing too though. “What happened to Mustache Girl?”

Snatcher, who’d followed her inside and was in the middle of the room, shrugged. “I don’t know. I told my minions to deal with her. They either killed her or moved her _out_ of the forest _or_ she died of her injuries. I would’ve snatched her soul but I was a bit… preoccupied. Too late now though but there’s always next time.”

“Wait! You mean… she _survived_ the crash?” There was no way that could be true, right?

“Yep, she sure did.”

“That’s so _unfair_!” Hat Kid couldn’t think of anything _more_ unfair. The crash had been _Mu’s_ fault, if only one of them was going to die because of it, it should’ve been _her_.

“Life ain’t fair,” Snatcher said with a chuckle. “Or, in this case, it’s more, death ain’t fair.”

Hat Kid scowled at him. “The least you could do is show me a bit of sympathy.” That was unfair, he’d already shown her _far_ more sympathy that she would’ve ever expected from him.

Snatcher _laughed_. “Kid,” he said, a second or two later as his laughter dwindled. “Sympathy isn’t something you should expect from me even if you are a ghost now.”

Hat Kid opened her mouth to make an angry retort but stopped herself. She wouldn’t know what to say and it wouldn’t accomplish anything. So instead she turned away and set to discovering the _exact_ damage her ship had taken.

Her ship hadn’t been going top speed so the damage wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been nor was it as bad as it had looked from the outside. That did not mean it was good though. She couldn’t know for sure it was beyond her skills to fix until she tried to fix it but there was a not low chance it was beyond her. She hadn’t paid _quite_ as much attention in the classes about repairing and general engineering as she should’ve, only doing what was required to get an A on tests and then immediately forgetting half of it because she didn’t really care about anything other than piloting.

But even if she _could_ repair it, it might not matter. Would she be accepted back home as a ghost? Would they graduate her? Let her keep her ship? Or would they fail her? Take her ship away? Possibly even banish her for being a ghost? All that on top of the fact that she was _dead_ now.

Shaking, she pressed her hands to her eyes, blocking out the sight of the ship and the burning trees surrounding it. Her face and hands felt _weird_ , cold and just kind of strange. She’d hugged Snatcher a few times, he’d felt a lot like this. At the time she’d thought it was a kind of nice texture, now though she didn’t like it.

“Please don’t start crying again kid, last time was bad enough.”

Hat Kid snapped around to see Snatcher _hadn’t_ left like she’d thought. He was frowning at her with his arms crossed a few feet away.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. She didn’t want to cry again either but… she’d never felt so lost and alone.

“Uh… sorry kiddo, can’t help you there. But, one of my minions just reported to me that they have finished burying your body. So, you can go visit your grave if you want.”

Hat Kid wasn’t sure she wanted to but… maybe she should? “Can you take me there?” If being a ghost gave her the power to move around at will she wasn’t sure how to activate it. “Please.”

“Ugh, fine, but only because I want to see it too.”

The world around them deepened to dark purple. It faded a few seconds later and they were in the graveyard near Subcon Village. A group of Subconites were waiting for them, one of which held a box.

“Hat Kid!” he said, waddling up to her to hold it towards her. “The stuff from your pockets. We thought you might want some of it so we took it off your corpse before burying it. And uh… sorry for your loss.”

She accepted the box and peeked inside. Her hat, the umbrella, all the badges she’d bought from the badge seller, and the various neat things she’d found lying around that’d she decided to keep were inside. “Thank you,” she said, putting as much cheer into her voice as she could conjure. The thought of them rifling through the pockets of her dead body was not a pleasant one but… she appreciated getting to keep her stuff. _And_ she appreciated the open sympathy.

“Whatever,” Snatcher said. “Where did guys bury her?”

“This way!” one of the other Subconites piped up and started leading them.

He brought them deeper into the graveyard, to a grave in the back. It was just like all the other graves, wooden cross for a headstone, but the mound of dirt was fresh. It was small though because well, Hat Kid was small; she’d died while still a kid. She’d never get to grow up… how unfair.

She didn’t like looking at it so she looked away, up at Snatcher instead. He looked… unimpressed. Before he could say anything though…

“Is your body buried somewhere here too?” she asked. “Or is your grave in a different special place because you’re the ruler of the forest?”

“My body was never buried.”

“Cremated then? You still have your ashes or did you spread them somewhere. You don’t have tell me where, I’m just curious.” Talking about someone else’s death and body was better than thinking about her own. And she was dead now too so that meant she could finally ask questions about such things without coming off as rude, or at least _less_ rude, right?

“It’s not important kid, stop asking about it.”

“Wait are you saying that you… _left_ it in the manor?” That was _sad_! And… wouldn’t she have seen it when she was there? She’d certainly seen where it had been. Unless he’d been dead long enough for even his bones to have rotted away to nothing. Which she doubted was the case because no way would the manor be in the less than good but still not completely dilapidated state it was in now if so.

Before Snatcher could answer, the Subconite who’d given Hat Kid the box of with her stuff in it spoke up. “His body was taken by…”

“Shut up!” Snatcher snapped. He opened his mouth to say more but Hat Kid interrupted him.

“Who or what took your body? And why? Was it your crazy ex? I heard a story once about a guy who kept the corpse of a lady he supposedly loved as decoration in a glass box in his house. He took it out to dance with it sometimes.”

Snatcher suddenly looked more uncomfortable than angry. “No kid, it wasn’t _her_ though… she might’ve if she’d been given the chance.” He grimaced even harder, looking almost downright horrified by that thought before shaking it off. “It’s _not_ something you need to know and my minions are _not_ going to tell you so don’t even ask them.” He turned to glare at the Subconite who’d spoken up, making the little guy flinch.

“Sorry Boss, wasn’t thinking,” he said.

“ _Don’t_ do it again.” Snatcher turned back to Hat Kid. “ _Anyway_ ,” he said forcefully, making it clear that he was changing the subject and wouldn’t tolerate anyone trying to change it back. “Now that we’ve been disappointed by your grave and you got your junk back, I _suppose_ I can offer you a place to stay until you figure out what you’re going to do now that you’re dead. Either fix your ship and leave or go somewhere else, I don’t care. As soon as you figure it out though, I want you out of my forest. You’re useless to me now that I can’t take your soul.”

“Really? I can stay?” Even without the invite she’d have stuck around to fix her ship – or try to at least. But an official invitation was _very_ welcome.

“Yes,” Snatcher said with a sigh as if already regretting extending the offer. “But like I said, it’s not forever, I want you out of here as soon as you can, okay?”

Hat Kid, placed her box of stuff on the ground so she could hug him. “Thank you!”

He froze just like he had when she’d hugged him while alive but _maybe_ not quite as stiff. “Yeah, whatever.” He sounded annoyed but he didn’t push her away.


	4. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I forgot to mention this last time, Cooking Cat, the owl band, and the Mafia Boss Jar were elsewhere, living their lives, when the ship crashed.

The first thing Hat Kid did upon returning to her ship was look for Rumbi. It took a bit but she eventually found it… and of course it was destroyed. Even if it was just a vacuum it had been her only companion on the ship for a long time. Making its demise just another bad thing on top of all the other bad things. … She could fix it though and would later. For now she put it in her room – it was a huge mess that she’d have to deal with later as well.

Before anything else, she needed to find a way to raise the ship off the forest floor so she could repair it easier. But how was she supposed to set up a rig to lift it when the only thing around was burning wood? Even wood brought in other parts of the forest probably wouldn’t help – assuming it wouldn’t catch fire – because she was just one person and a child at that. So… what should she do?

She thought about it and tested different things for maybe two hours before giving up. Snatcher had said he wanted to be left alone but she had no choice but to find him, he was the only one who could possibly help.

She went to Subcon Village first. It was… a bit of a mess. The water was drained, leaving behind muddy banks. And some of the logs that had once made pathways along the tops of some of the tree homes had fallen over.

“What happened?” she asked the Subconite who’d come up to greet her when she’d entered.

“Your ship crash landing shook everything up,” he replied.

“Oh, sorry.” She’d created more work for them and someone was going to have to unclog the well again. “But, do you know what happened to Snatcher’s body?” He’d said they wouldn’t tell her but it didn’t hurt to ask, right?

“Uh… I can’t tell you that, the Boss would have my head if I did, sorry.” Not surprising.

“That’s fine.” She’d find out some other way because no way would she stand for her curiosity not being stated, especially since the mystery would distract her from her less than pleasant circumstances. Later though, for now… “You know where Snatcher is?”

“Probably reading in one of his trees. I wouldn’t disturb him though if I were you, he likes his alone time.”

“I know but I have something important I need to ask him. Thanks,” she said even though that wasn’t much help. She’d been planning to start looking for him in his reading spots next anyway. Hopefully he wasn’t in the closed up one, she had no way of knowing which tree that might be.

Lucky for her though, he was in the next place she checked; the big tree hollow that she drop in front of when beaming down from her ship. He was reading and didn’t look up at her as she approached like he normally did.

“Snatcher,” she said when standing – could it be called ‘standing’ if she had no legs? – right in front of him.

He jumped a little before lowering his book to frown at her. “What do you want kid? I thought I told you to leave me be for a while.”

“Can you help me raise my ship off the ground? Pretty please. I want to fix it and that’s going to be much easier if it’s not on the ground. And I can’t build a rigging that will hold it up. So, can you help please?” She put her hands together in a begging gesture.

He stared at her in silence for a second or two before sighing. “ _Fine_ , if it’ll get you to leave me alone for longer.”

“ _Thank you_!” Hat Kid said as he used his turning the world purple trick to transport them to her ship.

He studied it for a couple seconds before gesturing at it. Thick thorny vines like the one he used for his traps rose out of the ground around it. They went up and up into the air, until they were nearly Snatcher’s height before bending and growing back down to wrap around pieces of the ship. Once they had a good grip, they lifted it up until it was almost all the way pulled up and hanging between them all.

“That good enough for you, kiddo?” Snatcher asked, his tone and expression still mildly annoyed as he turned to look at Hat Kid.

“Yes, thanks a million.” She felt almost happy for the first time since becoming a ghost… well actually since before then. “But how do you do that anyway? Like I know it’s magic, but… now that I’m a ghost could I do stuff like that and the teleporting and the laser beams and the everything else too?” She hoped so, it’d be the _one_ cool thing that came of this.

“No. You gain power from eating souls. You’d have to eat a _lot_ to be even half as powerful as me.” Despite all that power though, she’d still managed to beat him in combat, multiple times too, so it wasn’t worth _that_ much. But still…

“Oh, bummer.” She’d wanted magic powers too.

“I ain’t gonna stop you from eating souls if you want kid, just as long as you don’t take any I’m after.” Which was every soul that came into his forest. Meaning if she wanted any she’d have to leave the forest to hunt for them and… she wasn’t sure she wanted to unless the person was a bad guy. … She’d eat Mu’s soul if she got an opportunity to… maybe.

“But,” Snatcher continued, “now that that’s taken care, is there anything _else_ you need or can I _finally_ have some peace and quiet that lasts longer than five minutes?” He’d had a whole two hours, that was _plenty_ of time, he was being a grump. Whatever though, she was grateful for his help and willingness to let her stay in the forest.

“Actually, I have a question.”

Snatcher sighed and crossed his arms but didn’t interrupt or say she couldn’t ask it so…

“You made bodies for the Subconites, right?” She’d heard tales about it and had gotten confirmation from one of them too. “Could you… maybe make one for me?”

“I could but it wouldn’t make you any less dead.” Bummer. “And I can only make them out of cloth, meaning they’re pretty fragile. Any time you got a rip or tear you’d have to come running back to me to get it fixed and I don’t want to deal with that.” That meant he dealt with that from the Subconites though; she _knew_ he cared about them no matter what he might try to make it seem like. “Besides, you can possess pretty much anything, you don’t need a special doll for it even if that does make it easier. If you decide to do that though, I suggest possessing something that moves, don’t be an idiot and get yourself trapped in a TV or videotape or anything like that. I’ve heard it really bad time.”

“Uh… okay.” If getting trapped was a possibility maybe she didn’t want to mess with possessing stuff right now. And… as much as she wanted a body, a cloth one wouldn’t do; she wanted _her_ body back because she wanted to _still be alive_. That wasn’t an option though. “But uh… you said you made the Subconites bodies out of cloth so… does that mean you can sew?” She’s suspected as much considering all the outfits he’d rewarded her with for doing his Death Wish contracts. The thought of Snatcher of all people sewing was such a good thought.

“And knit,” he replied, seemingly not embarrassed by the admission at all, not what she’d expected to be the case. “Back in my day everyone could, but people these days view it as an old woman’s hobby which is _idiotic_.” He sneered, waving an arm in frustration. “It’s a useful skill and everyone should learn it.”

“You sound like an old man.”

He frowned at her, offended. In way, he was an old man though, right? He’d died young but he’d been around for a long time. “Yeah, whatever kid, I have stuff to do.” He vanished. Part of Hat Kid had wanted to him stay and keep her company but… that would be asking for too much, wouldn’t it? Instead she turned back to her ship, she had work to do.


	5. Checking In

Snatcher frowned down at his latest knitting creation, the one he’d been _so_ proud of yesterday. He’d used magic in its construction so that when Hat Kid wore it, she’d look like a ghost – with legs though because no amount of magic yarn could hide something like that – but now she _was_ a ghost. Making the reward pointless. Heck her doing the final Death Wish contract would be pointless too, you couldn’t kill what was already dead and the point of it had been to get her soul.

So what was he going to do with it? … With a snap, he sent it back to his pocket dimension. He’d figure out a use for it later. For now, he was going to go see what the kid was up to. By some miracle, she’d actually left him alone for almost a _whole_ day. He had to go make sure she wasn’t getting into trouble or annoying his minions while they tried to rebuild what her crash landing had damaged.

He could no longer sense her because she was dead just like almost everything else in the forest. However, looking for her wasn’t needed; she was right where he’d left in the burning part of the forest, working on her ship.

“Make any progress kiddo?” he asked.

She jumped and turned around to face. “Some,” she said, her tone rather miserable. “It’s… hard though. The engine’s pretty damaged, I might have to replace some of the parts in it and uh… in a few other places too.”

“Hmm, sounds rough,” Snatcher cut in in case she decided she wanted to go into detail. Space ships weren’t his thing, he’d rather not sit through a long explanation about them. “This all you been doing though? No breaks to cause trouble or anything?”

“I uh… tried to get some sleep but couldn’t and I don’t really feel physically tired anyway.” Implying she felt mentally tired because who _wouldn’t_ after what she’d been through?

“You can’t sleep anymore kiddo, you’re dead. The best you can do is hover _right_ on the edge of sleep. Which means you can never fully escape the torment of your own thoughts.” It was the worst part about being a ghost. Though even that had a bright side: no nightmares because considering how he’d died he’d probably have them if he could.

Hat Kid’s face fell even further. “That’s just awesome, another reason to hate being dead. I guess… that means I can just keep working though especially since I don’t seem to need to eat either.”

“Nah, take a break kid.”

She’d been starting to turn away but snapped back to face him. “I… uh… okay. Thanks.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Snatcher made a dismissive gesture towards her before leaving. He had to check the Subconites’ progress in fixing Subcon Village and help them out if they really needed it. There was also the matter of the well to look into, hopefully some unfortunate soul would wonder into the forest soon so he could make them deal with it.

Over the next few days, Snatcher kept an eye on Hat Kid just like he did with everything and everyone in this forest. She mostly just worked on her ship with determination he was familiar with by now but still found impressive, though he’d never tell her that. The few times she did take breaks she mostly hung out with the Subconites and only occasionally bothered him. But as far as he could tell, even her longest breaks weren’t more than an hour two. She was _very_ determined to fix her ship.

The fact that she was so grounded right after her unexpected death was surprising and admirable. Not something many people would expect from a child. But that was pretty normal for her because she was no normal child.

One evening when he popped in to check on her – staying hidden of course because she didn’t need to know he was there – she _wasn’t_ working on her ship. Instead, the sound of sobbing could just about be heard coming from inside. It was her, no doubt about it. Ugh!

He could just leave; pretend he hadn’t heard anything. He almost did too but… it felt wrong to do that. Ugh! He wasn’t growing soft though, he just wanted her tears to stop because thinking about them was annoying, listening to them was even _more_ annoying.

He drifted into the ship, staying hidden in the shadows. She’d cleaned it up and had even gotten the lights back on minus a couple that had shattered that she evidently didn’t have enough spares to replace. The result was a dimly lit room perfect for a shadow to hide in.

The sounds of her sobs came down the hall from her room – the door was open, whatever mechanism that had once kept it closed except when someone approached apparently broken because all the other doors hung open too. Her room had been cleaned up too, including the ridiculous pool of pillows. She’d even righted the candles he’d placed to claim one corner of the room as his own, she’d put them all around the room though to light it up because the overhead light wasn’t working.

She was on her bed, curled up under the blanket, crying. She wasn’t even trying to muffle it with a pillow or anything. Meaning if he wanted to get her attention to make her shut up, he had to say something. Or touch her but _that_ he wasn’t going to do.

“Kid,” he said, his tone a bit sharper than intended.

She flinched and audibly gasped. Her sobs stopped though as she sat up, pulling the blanket off her head. Tears streaked down from her now yellow eyes. “Snatcher?” She sounded almost afraid but… for some reason that didn’t bring him any pleasure.

“What are you crying about?”

“Uh… I don’t know if I can fix it and… even if I _can_ fix it… I don’t if… if… I’ll be allowed back home or if they’d let me keep my ship or… _anything_. So… I don’t know if there’s even a _reason_ to go back anymore.”

“What about your parents? Won’t they be happy to see you even if you are like this?” He gestured at her. Surely, a ghost was better than nothing, right?

“I don’t have parents.”

“What?!”

“I don’t have parents,” Hat Kid repeated. “Never did.”

Come to think of it, if she _did_ have parents, they certainly wouldn’t have let her run off with a space ship all by herself. Whoever had was clearly an awful authority figure, assuming she hadn’t stolen the ship somehow. Which he wouldn’t have thought a kid capable of doing before meeting her.

“Whatever.” Snatcher waved it off. “What would you do if you didn’t go home?”

“I… I… don’t _know_. I don’t even know if I _can_ anymore and I just…” She let out another broken sob as she lifted her hands to press one either side of her head.

“Whoa kid, calm down, no need to freak out, all right? Just… take a deep breath or _something_ , I don’t know. Just stop being upset.”

She looked up at him, tears leaking from her eyes. But she did take a deep breath, unneeded because she was a ghost but still a bit helpful, seemingly so anyway. “I don’t wanna be dead.” Back to that. She was a child though, despite everything, even she had to have a breaking point.

Not knowing what else to do to make her _stop_ looking at him like that, he teleported her to one of his reading spots, the one with the footstool which he’d placed her on. He then summoned one his books, switching it to its normal size at the same time. “Here,” he said, handing it to her with a forced smile. “Just read a book and try to relax for a while, all right?” Burying himself in a book always soothed him when he got upset, hopefully it would do the same for her. It was the only thing he could think of at any rate and was certainly better than the nothing he’d done last time, right? “Don’t think about that stuff.”

She looked down at book before looking back up at him, sniffling a little. “I… I’ll try… thanks.”

Snatcher settled back in his chair and pulled out a book for himself too. He didn’t what to think about things either, least of all the fact that he felt _sorry_ for her.

***

Hat Kid was surprised to find that the book was a book of fairy tales meant for children. It took her a little while to actually get into it but it was surprisingly easy to let herself sink in once she started. It gave her something else to think about and focus on that wasn’t terribly upsetting. It was actually quite happy and charming with a few illustrated pictures here and there.

By the time she finished it a few hours later – the first time she’d ever finished a whole book in one sitting, though it wasn’t long so it wasn’t a huge achievement – she almost felt okay again. Or at least what counted for okay since becoming a ghost. As she closed the book, she looked up at Snatcher. He was still reading, seemingly not paying her any attention but… he hadn’t left despite having other reading spots. _And_ he hadn’t needed to try to comfort her at all or lend her one of his books. She wanted to hug him in thanks but he wouldn’t appreciate it so she’d do so later when she didn’t necessarily need his company.

For now, she flipped back to the first story in her book to reread it because she’d been too emotionally distraught to take in most of it the first time. Afterwards maybe she’d ask for another book to read, a longer one that she could take back to the ship with her to read over the span of a few days to help keep her mind from drifting back to those horrible unhappy places.


	6. Awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope none of y'all thought Mu was gone from this story forever.

Mu woke to the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. She shifted to try to sit up but stopped, wincing instead as her body protested the movement with a sharp burst of pain. It felt like she’d been run over by a steam roller. … Or beaten up by the Mafia again, far worse than ever before.

Except the last thing she remembered was watching Hat Kid scramble towards the controls of her ship as the ship’s alarms blared warning of imminent impact. They’d crashed. So then… where was she? And how she’d get here?

With a grunt, she tried to sit up and sort of managed to, just about enough that she could look down at herself and inspect the source of the pain. She was covered in a blanket but could tell that under it both of her legs were in what could only be casts, so was her right arm. Her neck was in something too. _And_ she had an IV in her arm, _ugh_! On top of that she could feel that she wasn’t wearing her usual clothing but something thinner… a hospital gown? Or something similar?

She lifted her one good hand to her forehead only to find her head was bandaged too. With a groan she let herself flop back down to stare up at the ceiling again. She’d taken quite the beating. … She was lucky to be alive though; being in a spaceship as into crashed probably wasn’t a thing many people survived. All she could really do now was hope there was no permanent damage. _At least_ she knew she wasn’t paralyzed or anything like that; she could wriggle her toes on both feet and wriggle her fingers on her broken arm.

So, she looked around her surroundings as best she could. She was a small room, plain and unexciting, just a bed adorned with a drab blue bedspread and a little desk and chair. There was a window on the wall next to her, drab blue curtains closed tight, only a small sliver of sunlight, coming through to illuminate the otherwise dark room. None of it was familiar.

So… what should Mu do? What _could_ she do? … Nothing, she could no _nothing_. If this was a hostile location, she was doomed. She’d never been so injured she couldn’t at least walk before; it was… scary. She was at the mercy of whoever owned this place and had been taking care of her. … What if they expected her to pay for all this? There was no way she could, she was a broke orphan girl. Would they kick her out even before she healed? That’d be a death sentence. … What if they kept her as a slave to pay it off? Or sold her off to somebody? Or turned her into the Mafia? Or…

The door opened.

Mu flinched, balling her hand into a fist as if she had even a tiny bit of hope to be able to fight back should anyone try to hurt her. But the lady entering the room didn’t look threatening as she carried in a covered tray and flipped on the light, temporarily blinding Mu.

There was a soft clatter as she presumably placed the tray on the table followed a by a gasp. “You’re awake.”

Mu blinked open her eyes to look at the lady again. “Yes, I am. Who are you?” Just because someone _looked_ unthreatening didn’t mean they were.

“People around here like to call me ‘the Doctor’ but my real name is Anna. Whichever you prefer is fine.”

A real doctor, huh? That _might_ mean Mu was safe. Doctors were normally good guys, right? Though she could easily be lying about being a doctor to get Mu to lower her guard. … Though, considering the circumstances that wasn’t necessary; Mu was already at her mercy. So… maybe she was at least the kind of person to finish healing Mu before kicking her out because she couldn’t pay.

“People call me Mustache Girl.” She didn’t let her nervousness show in her voice. “So, you can call me ‘Mu’.” She didn’t give her real name out at all anymore because it didn’t matter. “What happened? How did I get here?” And what happened to Hat Kid?

The Doctor, or Anna – Mu wasn’t sure what she wanted to think of her as yet – pulled the chair out from the desk to sit down facing the bed. “I don’t know. A few weeks ago, someone rang my doorbell and ran off, leaving you alone on my doorstep, barely alive. I asked the neighbours but none of them saw anything and thus I have no idea who it might’ve been. Now that you’re awake I’m hoping you can shed light on that mystery.”

Had it been Hat Kid? _Surely_ , she’d have been injured in the crash too though, right? Unless whatever alien species she was, was super sturdy and resilient. It was certainly possible, according to stuff Mu had heard she’d been running around doing all sorts of dangerous stuff and coming out unscathed. So, why _wouldn’t_ she be able to survive a spaceship crash too? So it _had_ to have been her who brought Mu here.

How _unfair_! Mu had barely survived and Hat Kid was just fine. _And_ not only did she have the Time Pieces but she also _basically_ had super powers, neither of which she was using for good. She was _selfish_! Mu hated her.

“I think I know who it was,” she finally said before the silence could stretch too long. “You probably don’t know her though.”

“You… sound like you don’t like her.”

“It was her fault I got hurt.” Though that was a lie, wasn’t it? The crash was mostly Mu’s fault; she’d started the physical fight _and_ had been the one to push Hat Kid into the command desk, turning the ship on. But it was easier to say that than it was to explain the _actual_ situation. Especially since, Mu’s actions weren’t the most defensible without explaining _everything_ about the situation and that wasn’t something she wanted to get into with a stranger. “I don’t want to talk about it. But… you said you found me on your doorstep _how_ long ago?”

Anna frowned but sighed and answered. “Just shy of three weeks ago now.”

How could that long have possibly gone by without Mu realizing it? She’d been unconscious in the care of a complete stranger for almost three whole weeks! Thankfully said stranger seemed to be a good person so far but if she _hadn’t_ been… Mu didn’t even want to consider what might’ve happened.

And during that whole time, Hat Kid had most likely been repairing her ship, getting ready to leave with the Time Pieces. Ugh! Mu _needed_ those to stop the Mafia.

“How long before I’m healed enough to leave?” Fixing a crashed spaceship had to take a long time, right? Maybe Mu still had a chance if she recovered quickly and found the ship before Hat Kid could get it into space again.

“Not for a while sweetie. I can’t really give you an estimate. But, now that you’re awake, you can tell me how I can contact your parents so…”

“That’s not why I want to leave,” Mu interrupted. “I don’t have parents. I need to leave because I have something important I need to do. I can’t tell you what it is but it’s important.”

Anna gave her a look filled with sorrow that only made Mu feel a little angry because she didn’t want anyone’s pity. “Well, it’s going to be a while. I’m doing everything I can but healing takes time.” And with how bad Mu was hurt, it would take a lot of time. All she could really do was hope it would take _less_ time than it did for Hat Kid to fix her ship.


	7. Souls

“Yo kid, I got you something.”

Hat Kid snapped around to see Snatcher at the edge of the clearing her ship crash landing had made. “What is it?” she asked, floating closer. She was happy for the distraction; the more she worked, the more her fears about her repair skills not being adequate grew.

“A couple of Mafia goons wondered into my forest today,” Snatcher said, his tone smug. “One of them I sent off to fix the well, he should be done soon unless he’s even more incompetent than he looks. The other one though, I decided to just snatch up his soul without any contracts. You can have it if you want it.” He summoned a glowing bluish purple ball, presumably the soul, into his hand.

Hat Kid stared at it, not quite daring to accept it. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“Uh… just because.” Snatcher shrugged. “I don’t really need to eat two souls in a row anyway. So you want it or not?”

Hat Kid would be lying if she said she didn’t, it looked… _very_ appealing for some reason. And well, Mafia were bad guys so it was okay… right? _And_ it was a gift from Snatcher, there didn’t seem to be any strings attached which was rare from him. _And_ if she didn’t take it, he would just keep it instead. So… she reached out a hand and took from him.

It was warm in her hands as she drew it close to her chest, the most warmth she’d felt since dying. “What do I do with it?” she asked, looking up at Snatcher.

“What do you _think_ you do with it?”

“Uh…”

“You eat it.” Right of course.

She stared at it for a couple seconds longer. Was this _really_ an okay thing for her to do? … Probably best not to think about it too much, if she didn’t eat it, Snatcher would. And she was too curious to pass up this opportunity. So she opened her mouth wide and pushed it in. It tasted _amazing_ , the best thing she’d tasted in a long time, possibly ever. She couldn’t give a name to the taste, just that it was good. She didn’t have teeth and thus couldn’t chew so she just swallowed, almost automatically. A satisfying, _wonderful_ sensation of warmth and energy spread throughout her ghostly form, making her smile wide.

“You like it?” Snatcher asked, smug expression and tone back.

“Yes!” Hat Kid nodded. If offered another one she’d _gladly_ take it right now. This was the best she’d felt in a long time. “Thank you!” She hugged him, squeezing tight.

He tolerated it for a few seconds before grabbing her by the cape to pull her away. “Yeah, yeah, you’re very welcome,” he said, his tone flat and annoyed now.

Hat Kid couldn’t help but giggle. For a second his expression softened before he regained control of it once more.

“Can I shoot laser beams and summon stuff and teleport and all that now?” she asked. He’d said power was gained from eating souls and she’d just eaten a soul so…

“Probably not, one soul isn’t much,” Snatcher said. Which was about what Hat Kid had figured to be the case anyway so it was fine.

“How many would I have to eat to be able to do stuff?”

“Hmmm, I don’t know actually, I didn’t count. And I had a head start on the whole power thing when I became a ghost anyway so I couldn’t even give you an estimate.”

“Oh really?” She was _learning_ stuff about him, _exciting_. “Why? Does it have something to do with your crazy ex’s magic?”

Snatcher frowned at her; he didn’t like it when the queen was referred to as his ‘crazy ex’ even though it was true which was why Hat Kid did it. “It’s complicated,” he said, making a dismissive gesture. “Anyway, I suppose as long as you’re here, I can spare you the occasional soul and maybe we’ll find out how many it takes to start gaining power.”

“You’re the best!”

“Oh uh… yeah, of course. I already know I’m the best. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on my contractor’s progress with the well.”

***

The well was _still_ clogged; the Mafia goon _was_ more incompetent than he looked which was an accomplishment for sure. But a hearty push in the right direction got him moving again. Leaving Snatcher with nothing to do but wait for him to finish. Which also gave him time to think.

He wasn’t exactly sure _why_ he’d even considered giving the extra soul to Hat Kid, let alone why he actually gave it to her. But… seeing her happy and energetic for the first time since before her death had been… pleasant? … He felt sorry for her, that’s all. She was a child who’d died, only heartless monsters wouldn’t feel at least a little sorry for her. So, he’d helped her out a little, gave her a single soul so she could experience joy again even if only for a little while. It didn’t mean anything.

With a shake of his head, he went back to focusing on the Mafia goon to watch him _finally_ succeed in unclogging the well. The moron almost drowned in the resulting aftermath, turns out despite living on an island and being sailors, the Mafia weren’t great swimmers. But his heroic struggle to get himself out of the water was in vain because a Subconite was waiting there to send him to the arena to meet with Snatcher.

There wasn’t anything more that needed to be taken care of around the forest that the Subconites couldn’t handle on their own. So, as soon as the goon showed up, Snatcher popped in and did his spiel about how and why the previous contractor had lost their head – he’d rather not mention Hat Kid and thus talked about the contractor _before_ her instead.

The following fight was brief and disappointing, over in less than a minute. Oh well, not every battle could be thrilling. But unlike the Subconites who’d gathered to watch, his disappointment was alleviated by the rush of euphoria eating the goon’s soul gave him. That feeling _never_ got old no matter how many souls he ate. He let himself revel in it for a few minutes, ignoring the Subconites grumbling as they dispersed, before leaving.

Far too energized to sit and read, he’d go for a stroll around the forest instead. He needed check on his various traps anyway, make sure they were all still set properly, and dispose of the corpse of the Mafia whose soul he’d given to Hat Kid and then reset that trap.

Upon entering Subcon Village again he spotted Hat Kid. She spotted him too, her ghostly features brightening with a smile as she started rushing over to him. That was fine though, not even _she_ could bring down his mood after he’d eaten a soul.

“Snatcher!” she said upon reaching him. “Hi.”

“Hey kiddo,” he replied with a small wave. “What do you want?”

“Just to say ‘hi’ and to thank you for the soul again. But uh… everyone in the Village vanished a little while ago. It was weird. What happened?”

“I summoned them to the arena to watch me kill the other goon.”

“Oh uh I guess that makes sense. But… that was like less than five minutes ago, how are you already done?”

“Believe it or not kid, _most_ people can’t stand up to me in a fight.” Most people fared a bit better than the Mafia goon had but still while Hat Kid wasn’t the first person to beat him, it was a rare occurrence and hadn’t happened in a long time. However, she _was_ the first person ever to find a way to beat him and not accept his ‘go away and never return’ contract. She’d instead decided they were BFF’s, pure insanity.

“Yeah,” Hat Kid said with a small sigh “I guess the Mafia goons aren’t very threatening except to old people. I still feel kinda sorry for him though.”

“Don’t. It makes you a hypocrite after you ate that soul earlier.”

“Oh… yeah, huh?” She grimaced a little before shaking it off. “But uh… anyway, what are you doing now?”

Normally he would’ve told her it was none of her business and to go away but he was feeling too good to be annoyed with her right now. “I’m about to patrol the forest, make sure everything’s in tiptop shape.”

“Can join you? I just… got so much energy.” She closed her hands into fists and did a little bounce. “It’s _great_ but I gotta do something.” She was almost like her old self… ~~a pleasant sight.~~

“Sure, I guess, as long as you promise to stay quiet and out of the way.”

“I can do that, easy.”


	8. Patrol

‘Going on patrol’ seemed to be synonymous with ‘taking a walk’. But who was Hat Kid to judge? She’d never patrolled anything before. It was pleasant either way though even if she did want to chat and had to resist the urge to do so. Getting out and moving around… being somewhere _other_ than her ship was nice. And as a ghost, she could see in the dark much better, meaning she could see more of the forest. It was creepy and stuff but… she liked it anyway, spooky had always been an aesthetic she enjoyed.

So she followed Snatcher around, observing him as he checked his traps and set up a few new ones. There was one trap that had been sprung, something heavy and motionless was inside; he glanced at her before quickly magicking it off somewhere else – what it was she wasn’t sure she wanted to know and thus chose not to think about it. Other than that one look though, he paid her no obvious attention. Which was fine since it had to mean he was cool with her hanging with him for a while. Eventually she did _have_ to speak though.

“I never finished your advanced contracts,” she said as he paused to examine one of his traps by the swamp. It was right on the path leading to one of the plank walkways.

“You’re still here,” he said as he turned to face her. “I thought you’d have gotten bored and left by now.”

“Nope, I like walking around the forest, it’s nice. And I like spending time with you because you’re my BFF.” She smiled at him and for once he didn’t frown back. Instead he maintained a more neutral expression as if purposefully holding it. Part of that had to be that he’d eaten a soul too and thus had to be feeling at least as good as she was. Unless the feeling faded the more souls one ate, she doubted it though.

“But um…” she continued. “I never got to do the final Death Wish.” She’d been so excited for it too. Many of his challenges had brought her closer to death than she ever had been before, each narrow escape and glorious victory had been more exhilarating than the last. … Now though she’d crossed that threshold, her death hadn’t even been while doing anything exciting or fun. “What was it going to be?”

Snatcher hesitated for a couple seconds before replying. “I was going to have you fight your strongest foes; the Mafia Boss, the directors and then me again. Except I was going to take two EX potions this time, assuming you even _made_ it that far. There was no way you would’ve won.”

“That sounds like it’d be fun.” Hat Kid had loved the rainbow potion fights even if she did feel bad about getting others involved with Snatcher’s contracts. She’d… never got around to apologizing to them for that, she should really get on that. “But… wouldn’t taking two rainbow potions be dangerous?”

Now Snatcher did frown a little. “For you, yes, which would’ve been the point. _But_ I thought I told you not to call them that. It makes it sound like it’s a _good_ thing when it’s _not_ ; the rainbow effect is purely coincidental and unintentional.”

Of course, it wasn’t good, it turned people into mindless killing machines. Even Snatcher had clearly _not_ been himself during that fight. Which was why taking two seemed like a bad idea. But Snatcher was the one who made the potions, he knew more about them and their effects than she did so if he’d been planning on it, it probably would’ve been okay. Regardless though…

“Now that I’m dead I guess I’m not going to get to do it, huh?” That _sounded_ like it’d be fun, difficult for sure, she maybe even would’ve lost – she didn’t think so though, she had confidence in herself. “Unless… you want to go through with it anyway?” She looked up at him with her best innocent look.

He sighed and shook his head. “No. There’s no reason to do it now that you’re dead. There are ways to destroy ghosts but I’m not the type to use them, especially since your soul is forever useless to me now so I would gain _nothing_ from it. It’s real annoying that you died after all that time and effort I put into the contracts and the awards, especially the final one in case you _somehow_ managed to beat me. The _least_ you could’ve done was…”

“A reward!” Hat Kid interrupted. “What did you make me?” It _had_ to be something good, right? She’d been so looking forward to the final reward. Why’d she have to _die_? “Can I see it?”

For a second Snatcher looked like he was going to tell her ‘no’ but instead he sighed. “I guess there’s no reason not to show you.” He snapped his fingers and an object appeared in the air between them. A dark purple outfit. “It was designed so that when you wore it, you’d look like a ghost. But now that you _are_ a ghost, the whole thing is pointless. So I guess you can have it, I no longer have any use for it.” With a wave of his hand, he sent it towards her.

She caught it and was surprised to find it didn’t feel like fabric but ghostliness instead. … She would’ve _loved_ this if she was still alive; looking like a ghost would’ve been so much fun, not being one though. “Thank you,” she said anyway as she looked back up to see that Snatcher had gone back to fixing his trap.

Other than a quick dismissive hand wave, he made no response. He didn’t tell her to get lost though so… presumably she was still welcome to hang with him for the rest of this patrol, walk thing. Maybe if she paid close enough attention, she could even learn how to set up a trap of her own. What she’d do with anyone or anything she caught, she didn’t know nor did she care, it was the thought that counted.

Going back to her ship after the emotional high eating the soul had given her that was clearly starting to fade even though it had only been like four or five hours, and the following stroll around the entire forest was… a bit of a bummer. The repairs were going about as well as could be expected but she was getting close to the point where she’d know for sure if it was within her power to fix it or not. … She should’ve tried harder and paid more attention in the engineering classes.

_Before_ dealing with that she went inside and to her room. She looked over the ghost costume one last time, admiring its cool texture, before hanging it in her closet alongside all the other outfits and hats Snatcher had made for her as rewards. … All of which she’d _earned_ except for the new one. This was _so_ unfair. He wouldn’t even let her try to earn it. … Not that it’d be a thrilling challenge with the threat of death or harm gone anyway so it _would_ be kind of pointless, huh? Peck!

She slammed the closet door shut with a satisfying bang. She’d been away for long enough, she had work to get back to now. She was nothing if not stubborn and until she knew whether or not returning home was an actual option, she wasn’t going to think anything other than fixing her ship.

Hours passed and she kept working. Without the need to eat or sleep, she was much more productive. The cost of that though… wasn’t worth it. She… didn’t want to be a ghost. She wanted to be alive.

With a sigh, she lowered her tools. Time for a break before her mind could wonder too far down that dreary path. Besides, there was no rush, if anything taking longer with it was a good thing.

She floated back into the ship and to her room. The latest book Snatcher had lent her was on her bedside desk. Reading wasn’t normally her kind of thing but Snatcher’s advice to read to distract herself from bad thoughts was good, especially since sleep wasn’t possible. She’d have to ask him for a new book soon, she was almost finished with this one. Maybe she’d finish it now and then instead of going back to work on her ship she could find him and ask him for a new one? … Nah, he’d already given her so much of his time today. She didn’t want to be _that_ much of a nuisance. She’d do it tomorrow instead.


	9. Secret

“Snatcher!”

Snatcher _almost_ jumped before lowering his book to see that Hat Kid had snuck up on him again. But she didn’t disturb him nearly as often as she had when alive though so he wasn’t _too_ bothered. “You need something?”

“I finished the book you gave me.” She held towards him as she floated closer to hover on the footstool next to his chair. “I need a new one.”

Snatcher put his own book down on the table so he could reach over to take the book from her. He flipped through it to make sure she hadn’t damaged it. That was the deal they’d made; he’d keep lending her books as long as she didn’t damage any of them. Just like the last two, this one was in the same exact condition it had been in when he’d lent it to her so… “What kind of book do you want this time?” he asked as he magicked the book away.

“Uh… I’m liking the fairy tales but what other kinds of books do you have?”

“I’ve been collecting books for almost three-hundred years kid, so I think it’s safe to say I have every kind of book imaginable.” And he was very proud of his collection even if he rarely ever got to mention it. “So just give me genre, I don’t have time to waste helping you pick out something to read. Or if you prefer non-fiction, I got those too, my collection of law books is particularly impressive.”

“Three hundred years is a long time so that must be a lot of books. Where do you keep them all? You have access to a pocket dimension, right? I’m pretty sure you do because what else could it be? But I suppose I could be wrong, I don’t know the specifics of the magic on this planet. But anyway, my point is those can get pretty unstable and fall apart if they have too many things in them so you might want to be careful.”

Snatcher almost asked her what she, a kid, would know about pocket dimensions but she’d already proven herself to be far from a normal child. It was probably something she’d learned about in the same place that taught her how to fly and repair a spaceship at her age. There was something a bit fishy going on there, it was none of his business.

“Yeah, I know,” He said instead as if he _hadn’t_ found that out the hard way shortly after he’d gained enough power to make a pocket dimension. Thankfully he’d never kept his precious books in it. “That’s why I have a personal library. No one knows where it is and no one other than me can get in and out of it so don’t even try to find it kid.”

Hat Kid gasped and smiled wide – not something she did often since her death. “A secret library! That’s sounds exciting. Can you take me to it? You don’t have to tell me where it is or anything and I won’t tell anyone it exists or what it looks like or any of that stuff. But I want to see, please.”

If it were _anyone_ else, Snatcher would’ve said ‘no’ immediately, probably would’ve made it bite too. But… she was so excited about it and… he felt sorry for her so he couldn’t bring himself to crush that excitement. Didn’t mean he was growing soft or actually liked seeing her happy though, he just… sympathized with the hardships of being new to existing as a ghost. And she was a child too, making it that much harder on her. So…

“All right fine,” he said with a long-suffering sigh as he straightened form his chair. “But only because it’s been a while since I last checked on the minions I assigned to maintaining it. I have to cull them every once in a while to weed out the trouble makers and make sure the rest keep doing a good job.” Not true, none of the Subconites ever caused problems – or the very few times they did, it was never major and _never_ in rebellion against him in any way – but she didn’t need to know that.

The look she gave him as he transported them through his pocket dimension suggested she suspected that truth – ugh – but he ignored it. And thankfully she was quickly distracted as they appeared in the library.

The whole place was his most prized possession. He’d made everything big enough to suit his preferred size. The books, the shelves, the lanes between the shelves; all larger than normal and fit just for him. Even the magic candles, the only light in the library, were placed far apart because he didn’t need much light to see well. Overall it was a place meant _for_ him and him alone… and yet he’d brought Hat Kid because he didn’t want to crush her excitement about his secret library.

“This is so _cool_ ,” she said, craning her neck up and looking all around, amazement write upon her ghostly features. “The books and the shelves are _huge_.”

“Are you _really_ surprised?” Snatcher asked. “You’ve interrupted me while reading how many times now? You should know by now that I make my books big.”

“Yes, but I never thought you kept them big all the time. I kind of assumed you just put them back to their normal size when you were done with them.”

He’d done that for a while until he’d made the library. It would maybe be more efficient to continue doing so to save space in the library but… he didn’t want to. This was his space; it was going to be the way he wanted it to be even if it wasn’t completely practical and he wasn’t going to let anyone take it away from him.

“But uh, Hat Kid continued, “can I go exploring? This place is real neat! It’s got a haunted library aesthetic which… I guess it is, huh? I like it.”

Snatcher was again faced with not wanting to crush her excitement but he had to draw a line somewhere. This was _his_ place, she was the first person _ever_ to be down here other than the Subconite librarians, so there was no way he going to let her wonder off unsupervised. So… “You’re not leaving my sight while we’re here,” he said. “I don’t trust you not to make a mess or damage something.”

She pouted. “That’s not fair, you know I’m more responsible than that.” True, but he wasn’t going to budge on this, she had to at least know that about him, right? “But fine, whatever. I can explore with you hovering over my shoulder. I don’t mind, it’ll give me someone to talk to.”

“We’re not staying long enough for you to explore. I’m going to check on my minions, you’re going to pick out a book, and then we’re leaving.”

“Ah but…”

“No ‘but’s,” Snatcher interrupted. “I only brought you down here so you wouldn’t complain and bother me about it for who even knows how long. So take what you can get and be happy.”

She gave him another sad face but otherwise didn’t protest. “Okay.”

***

The Subconites who ran the library were different than the ones Hat Kid was used to. They had similar hoods, cloaks and glowing faces but they were twice as tall and had an extra pair of arms. Presumably the added height and limbs helped them maintain the library somehow, probably having something to do with the sheer size of the books they were working with. She wanted to know more but it was probably rude to ask so she refrained for now.

They all seemed to live in a little alcove off the library. Starting with a room that looked a bit like a receptionist’s room despite the fact that that shouldn’t be needed in a private library. Maybe, this was where Snatcher sent his books when he was done with them, letting the Subconites put them back into the exact right spot. It didn’t matter though, while Snatcher was busy chatting with a group of Subconites about _something_ , Hat Kid could sneak off to go explore.

The hallway leading away from the library and presumably to the Subconites’ ‘living’ area was alluring. She wanted to know if they cohabited differently than the Subconites in Subcon Village or anything else that might different or special about them. The doorway leading back to the library was far more enticing though because it was a special secret library. It _had_ to contain answers to many mysteries. So she tiptoed over towards it. Before she reached it though…

“The Boss has never brought anyone down here before.”

Hat Kid jumped as she turned back to see one of the librarian Subconites had approached her. They even _sounded_ just like the ones she was familiar with.

“You must be something special,” he continued. “What’s your name?”

“Well, people here call me Hat Kid so you can too. But… has Snatcher really never brought anyone down here before?”

“Nope, never has. So you must really mean a lot to him. It’s nice to see him start to open up to other people again more.”

Hat Kid knew Snatcher cared more than he let on but knowing bringing her here meant he care _a lot_ was a nice thought. Because… it was just nice that _someone_ cared. She’d felt so alone since dying. … Heck, she’d been lonely for a long time, it’s part of why she’d decided to stick around and do Snatcher’s Death Wish contracts instead of heading home. It had just been so much _worse_ since her death.

“It’s also nice to see a new face,” the Subconite continued, oblivious to how special his words had made her feel. “We never really leave the library so we never get to meet anyone new.”

“Hmm… so are the Subconites down here special in some way? Or did you just volunteer for this job?”

“We volunteered. Though some of us know things that the Boss doesn’t want people knowing. And some of that stuff may be common knowledge down here now and that’s why we’re not allowed to leave.”

More secrets! “What kind of stuff? I want to know too! He’s my BFF _and_ he trusts me enough to bring me down here so it’s totally okay if you tell me.” Probably not true but who cared? She wanted to know. Before the Subconite could answer though…

“Don’t tell her anything unless you want to lose your head.”

Hat Kid jumped and turned around to see Snatcher was suddenly behind her. Damn it, why’d he have to come and ruin it? She’d been about to learn _secrets_. It was no fair.

“This is Hat Kid,” he continued, speaking to the Subconite, “dying has unfortunately done nothing to make her any less of a nosy _brat_. So don’t tell her anything she doesn’t need to know. That’s a direct order, disobeying will be a breach of your contract.”

“I wasn’t going to,” the Subconite said.

Hat Kid frowned at him and then at Snatcher “But I want to _know_.”

“Too bad kid,” Snatcher said. “And if you ask anything like that again, we’re leaving and I’m never bringing you back. It’s none of your business.”

She sighed, exaggerating it to make sure he knew how disappointed she was. “Yeah, I know.” As much as she wanted to know it was likely sensitive information. Like stuff about his past perhaps; painful to dredge up which is why he wouldn’t want it to be. It was still no fair to be teased with it though, especially since the Subconite hadn’t even been planning to tell her anything. “Sorry. Can we go look around the library a little bit now please? I still need to pick out a new book and I want to see more of this place, it’s cool.”

He glared his disapproval at her for a second or two longer before letting out his own sigh. “Fine, only for a little while. I have stuff I need to get back to in the forest.”

‘A little while’ turned out to be more than an hour. Hat Kid wondered through the library, looking at all the various books, determined to have as much time as he would give her. She asked him about some of the more interesting titles, testing to see if he really had read them all. Seems like he had, impressive.

She eventually settled on a book though, shortly after he expressed impatience for the third time – she didn’t want to push it too far. It was a history book about Subcon.

“You’re not going to find anything about me in that.” Snatcher said with a frown. “It was published while I was still alive so naturally my tale’s not in it.”

“Oh, really?” Hat Kid actually found that idea exciting in its own way. She’d get to find out what the forest was like _before_ Vanessa destroyed it with her ice magic and Snatcher took it back from her and spread his own ghostly influence over it “That sounds neat.”

“It’s more boring than ‘neat’ but whatever, I’m not judging, I sometimes read law books for fun.” He snapped his fingers and the book shrunk down to normal size as he handed it to her. “But now that that’s done…”

He snapped again and the world around them shifted to purple before going back and… they were back in the big reading hollow they’d started in. Hat Kid missed the library already, it had been nice. Hopefully she’d get to go back one day and explore a little more.


	10. Repairs

Hat Kid was getting close to finishing her attempt at repairing the ship. She wouldn’t know if it was successful until she finished and turned it on. Once on, its self-diagnostics systems would tell her if the ship could fly and if so, how well.

It was _nerve-wracking_ being so close to an answer on whether or not she was stuck here or if she’d have to truly start to consider how people back home might react to her new form. Despite that she buckled down on it, taking breaks only to read her book in lieu of sleeping.

The Subcon history book was dense and thick, lasting her far longer than any of the fairytale books had. The images of Subcon before it had been cursed were the most interesting. It was just a normal small kingdom surrounded by normal woods. It seemed to be a peaceful place, a few wars had been fought over it but not many and none of them particularly bad, all ending in peace treaties. It was actually kind of boring, not what Hat Kid had been expecting at all. It kept her busy when not working on her ship so she kept reading, hoping for more interesting stuff to pop up deeper in the book.

But eventually she reached a point where she _finally,_ at long last had done everything she _possibly_ could to repair her ship with what resources she had. She’d had to cut a few corners but in theory it might work. Only one way to find out.

The ship fired up just fine. _Maybe_ it took a few seconds longer than normal but that might’ve just been her anticipation making it seem longer. She sat at the command desk… where her body had been and thus where she’d _died_! … Nope, she wasn’t thinking about that right now even if she just realized she’d been avoiding this spot until now. But she had _no_ choice, it was the ship’s command desk.

She quickly punched in some commands, starting the ship’s self-diagnostics. It took it a few minutes but the overall result came up yellow. More info revealed that it was functional but being careful was advised, especially when warp jumping. The computer also advised going home for immediate proper repair. _But_ that was possible, according the computer which was rarely wrong, the ship _could_ safely make it all the way back home. Meaning despite all odds she’d done it, she’d gotten her ship space worthy again. All she had to do now was fix the window and she was free to go home whenever she pleased because she already had all the Time Pieces back – she’d only been sticking around to do the Death Wish contracts.

It almost didn’t feel real. _How_ long had she been working on this? Weeks and weeks for sure, months even. And now it was basically done. But… did she still even _want_ to go home?

Would she be accepted back as a ghost? Would returning dead count as having failed the final test? If so, they’d want take her ship away. Did she want to risk that with how _strict_ the Headmaster was? Her ship meant everything to her, losing it or giving it up was out of the question, it was _hers_. But… she’d worked _so_ hard to go back home, both before and after her death. And it was _home_ she couldn’t just abandon home without even trying even if it meant risking her ship, could she?

With a sigh, she exited through the broken window, floating down to the forest floor. If only she could take a nap, get away from thinking about this decision for a while. She could read, that helped a lot but… she wasn’t in the mood to slog through more the history book right now.

Instead, she went for a wander. Getting away from the ship and just looking around the forest was nice, especially now that there weren’t any hazards to her. Eventually she inevitably ended up looking for Snatcher. It had been a while since she’d talked to him, days in fact. She found him in his favourite reading spot in the giant hollow.

“Snatcher,” she said in way of greeting as she floated in.

“Hmm… hello,” he replied, not looking up from his book.

“Um… I finished repairing my ship.” _That_ got him to lower his book and look at her. “All I need to do now is fix the window and I can go home.”

“That’s great news,” he replied with a smile. “I’ll finally be rid of you. I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, but…” Hat Kid lifted a hand to rub the back her neck, far too used to the feel of her own ghostly form now. “I don’t know if I want to go to back home.”

Snatcher’s eyes narrowed as he actually closed his book now. “Why not?”

“I uh… don’t know if… they’d let me back like this. They might… count my death as a failure and… take away my ship.” And without that, what was the point? She had no family, a friend yes, but… would Bow want her back like this?

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The school. I didn’t teach myself how to fly and repair a space ship, you know, someone had to teach me.”

“Honestly kid, if you told me you did, I might actually believe you.” Oh! A compliment, that was unlike him. Exciting stuff. But before she could call him on it, he continued. “But why are they teaching _children_ that stuff in the first place?”

Should Hat Kid answer this? She’d been told not to say anything about her home planet to any intelligent life she discovered. … He was her BFF though so it was _probably_ fine, especially since he wasn’t likely to be able to do anything with the info even if he wanted to. Besides, the rule had been about intelligent _life_ and Snatcher was not alive so telling him was _technically_ not breaking the rules. So…

“Well,” she said, “ _most_ of the kids aren’t given a real ship to fly until they’re a bit older. I’m what they call a ‘prodigy’ though, meaning I’m like real smart or something. I went through the classes super-fast so I would be allowed to fly a spaceship.” Once she’d learned that that was on the table, she’d been determined to do it no matter what it took. “Some of the teachers complained about how fast I was elevated because like a lot of the pilot tests and training things are super dangerous and people get hurt during them. They quickly stopped caring though after I aced the first one.” And she’d never cared, danger was fun and more than worth dealing with if it meant she got to fly her ship.

Snatcher frowned. “That sounds like a major lawsuit waiting to happen. They’re going to get sued into the ground sometime soon, the fact that they haven’t been already is a miracle.”

Hat Kid shrugged; she didn’t know much about that kind of thing. “I don’t know if they can be.” She didn’t really care either. “I’m pretty sure they’re heavily backed by the government or some big important organization that wants more trained pilots for their space fleet. They’re into ‘exploring outer space and expanding their galactic influence’ which I’m pretty sure means they’re into conquering weaker planets and expanding their space empire.”

Now Snatcher actually looked offended. It was comical. “That’s even _worse_ kid. What the peck is wrong with your home planet?”

“I don’t know.” Hat Kid hadn’t thought anything was strange about it, though she _had_ grown up with it so maybe he was right? She didn’t care though, she just wanted to fly her space ship. But… “Why do you care so much?”

“I don’t.” Lies, he put on a calm demeanor now that didn’t change how openly offended he’d just been. “I’m just saying, a school training children and other young people to be part of basically their army is amoral. I have no doubt there’s a lot of brainwashing going on there. The fact that their training is dangerous makes it even worse, _especially_ since they let literal children take part in it.”

“What about all your contracts? You forced me to work for you, doing some pretty dangerous things. And the Death Wish contracts are _super-duper_ dangerous, I almost died doing them more times than I can count. So, aren’t you just as bad as they are?”

“That’s different.” Snatcher made a dismissive gesture. “I’m not in charge of your wellbeing. People who take on the responsibility of raising and teaching children should at least _try_ to raise them well.”

“So, what you’re saying is if you adopted a kid, you’d be a good parent?” Hat Kid would like to see that. She couldn’t even _imagine_ Snatcher trying to be _good_ , it’d be hilarious.

“Oh uh… I guess I’d try to be.” Snatcher shrugged, examining his nonexistent nails. “I’m not going to adopt any children though. I _hate_ kids, they’re the worst. There’s one in particular that won’t stop bothering me, she’s without a doubt the single most annoying person I’ve ever met.”

Hat Kid couldn’t help but giggle a bit. “I’ll take that as a compliment. You’re old so you must’ve met a _lot_ of people, the fact that I’m the most annoying one is impressive.”

“I’m not old.” Despite his contrary words, his expression and tone were closer to being soft than he probably intended. “Or well… maybe I am old in a way. Nothing wrong with being old though. And it wasn’t a compliment, it was an insult. Being annoying is a _bad_ thing kid, it makes people not like you.”

“Well, you seem to like me plenty despite that so I’m not too worried.”

Snatcher scoffed. “In your dreams kid.” He could say that all he wanted but she knew the truth, this conversation confirmed it. But speaking of that, the thing she’d come here to discuss with him wasn’t resolved, they’d got sidetracked.

“But uh… anyway,” she said. “I was tasked with visiting three planets to gather data and stuff, this one wasn’t really planned, as a final test. I was supposed to fly back home and graduate and the ship would officially be mine.” It already _was_ hers as far as she was concerned. “But… since I died, they might view it as a failure and take away my ship. I… would rather not return if that’s what they’re going to do.”

“How likely is it that they’ll take your ship?”

“Uh… I don’t know but… I fear it’s high.” Was she just being paranoid though? Or was she judging them accurately? “And I don’t know much about ghosts on my home planet but… I know there are ghost hunters who hunt them. I don’t know what they do with them once they catch them though.” There was a very real possibility she’d find out if she went back. “So… I don’t know if I _should_ go home but I’ve worked so hard to go back and it’s still _home_ so… I’m not sure what I should do.”

“Hmmm… sounds like you’re in a bit of pickle.”

“Yeah, can you uh… help me? Give me advice or something? I know you probably don’t have any experience in this kind of thing but… I don’t know what to do.”

Snatcher was silent for a few seconds before replying. “Depending on the exact laws of your planet, you might be able to make a legal case for keeping your ship and graduating. You’re a child without a legal guardian though so that complicates things a bit on top of the fact that the school itself is already unethical so they wouldn’t play fair and they’d be able to get away with it because they have a lot of money and a powerful backer. _And_ you’re a ghost, if they’re the kind who want to eradicate ghosts, then you’re probably screwed if you return. So, I would say, if you comfortable taking the risk, then go for it, otherwise, cut your losses and find a new home. You already said you don’t have any parents and the way you spoke about it suggested you don’t have any family either so there’s really nothing keeping you from not returning.” His tone suggested he thought that was the right course of action.

“Uh… okay. I need to think about it some more than I guess.” But really… she’d already decided, hadn’t she? She’d just wanted someone to tell her that that was the right choice or at least an okay choice to make. And she needed one more thing… “If I do decide not to go back though can I… stay here?” Because where else would she go? She was a ghost, a haunted forest full of other ghosts would be the most logical place for her to call her new home. With a bit of work – and probably with Snatcher’s help if he was willing – she could get a docking bay for her ship in the forest so she could take off and land at will. She could take her ship to the nearest spaceport to repair it fully before returning and then from then on this would be her home base. Assuming of course that Snatcher was okay with her staying indefinitely.

Snatcher opened his mouth as if to answer but grimaced instead. “Uh… you know what, fine,” he finally said, relaxing back into his chair. “Since you died, you’ve been less of a bother anyway, so I guess you can stay, provided you continue to stay out of my way.”

“All right, I can do that. Thank you!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go figure out what you want to do.” He made a shooing gesture towards her. “And then tell me so I know if I should expect you to stick around or not.” He picked up his book again, opening it and already ignoring her again.


	11. Staying

Two metro cat had wondered into the forest, looking for something to steal – for some reason people liked to spread rumors about riches being buried in the forest or hidden in the manor which drew the occasional miscreant or two looking to get rich quick. There wasn’t anything around the forest that needed to be done So Snatcher didn’t bother making them contractors.

He could easily eat both souls himself and intended to but… Just eating one put him in a good mood, a _generous_ mood and he didn’t _need_ the second so… he’d share it with Hat Kid instead. He’d been intending to chat with her sometime today anyway.

He found her at her ship as usual. It had been a few days since she’d come to him with news about having fixed the important parts of her ship, he hadn’t seen her since. Apparently, she’d been fixing the window as it was now in place again. The door that used to be on it was gone though, probably a smart move since she’d supposedly lost the Time Pieces through it

“Hey kiddo,” Snatcher said, making her jump a bit as she turned to face him, smiling. “I got a present a for you.”

She floated closer, face lighting up with anticipation. “Really? What is it?”

He pulled the soul out and held it towards her. “Another soul.”

Her hesitation before accepting it was much less than with the first soul he’d given her. Same with the guilty look she gave it before putting it in her mouth. The effect was immediate, euphoria and joy overcoming her features. “Thank you!” She was happy again as kids _should_ be, as she’d been more often than not before her tragic death.

Not that Snatcher really cared, she meant pretty much nothing to him. He just… just… whatever. “You’re welcome, I guess,” he said in an offhanded tone. “There were two again so I figured I might as well share.”

“I see why you like it so much. It’s really nice. Gosh, I feel kind of bad though because I don’t want to hurt anyone but… it feels real good, almost like I’m alive again.”

“You’ll get over feeling bad about it soon enough.” Snatcher had once upon a time felt bad about snatching and eating souls too but he had to if he didn’t want his power to start to fade and then his mind. With how good it felt, he’d gotten over the guilt faster than he would’ve thought; his past self before his death would’ve been horrified. “But anyway, I see you ship looks pretty much done, you going to go home on it?”

Hat Kid turned around to look at it for a couple of seconds before turning back to look at him. “I… don’t think so. I thought about it a lot and… I don’t think they’d want me back like this. And… maybe you’re right about how they’re rising and teaching us is wrong. I don’t know though; I just want to keep my ship. So… I want to stay here with you.”

Surely the ‘with you’ part hadn’t been necessary. She wasn’t staying with him; he was just letting her stay in his forest because… he felt bad for her. But then why did her saying that, especially in that way, make him feel good? … It was probably just the soul he’d eaten earlier making him feel that way. Speaking of that though…

“All right,” he said. “But since you’re staying, I should tell you, I’m not going to keep giving you souls. Eventually you’re going to have to learn how to snatch your own souls.”

“Oh uh… could you teach me how to do that?”

That… hadn’t been what Snatcher would’ve thought she’d reply with. He’d _thought_ she say she didn’t want to do that, that she was too concerned about not hurting anyone. But apparently, she was okay with it. “Why would I teach you anything?”

“Because you know how and I don’t. I really want to be able to fire lasers and teleport and all that magic stuff. So could you teach me?” She looked up at him with a hopeful expression that… he was going to have trouble saying ‘no’ too, wasn’t he?

“Hmmm… I’ll think about it.” Which meant ‘yes’ he just didn’t want to admit it out loud right now. “But since you’re staying, there are some other things we need to work out too.”

“Really? Like what?”

“I’ll tell you later, I need to work up a contract first.” He _could_ just create a contract with magic but he needed to make sure of the wording on this one so he wanted to write it out by hand. “This needs to be official after all.” Before she could reply, he left, teleporting back to his reading spot.

“You want me to sign a contract, promising to never try to take control of the forest from you, really?” Hat Kid said, raising an eyebrow as she looked up at him.

“Yes, I already have the ice bitch trying every so often and other people come along and try too. I don’t want to deal with you trying to take it too,” Snatcher replied. “You have those Time Pieces of yours, I don’t know exactly what all they’re capable of or how they work but I know from having handled them, they’re pretty powerful. I know you use them to fuel your ship, but you’re not planning to use them to go home anymore so you could potentially use them for other things.” He could probably take them from her if he wanted to but… even as a ghost she’d undoubtedly be able to cause more trouble for him than it was worth. “Hence, the contract; you’re not allowed to use them against me or my forest in any way. Doing so, will forfeit ownership of them to me and get you banished forever.”

“You know I’d never do that though, right? Using them like that is against the rules _and_ you’re my best friend forever, I’d _never_ betray you like that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, whatever, I’m just making sure.” He had trust issues and _really_ , who could blame him for that? So he’d made a magically binding contract ensuring the safety of himself and his forest, consequently everyone and everything within the forest as well but she didn’t need to know he was trying to keep his minions safe too. It _was_ possible that the Time Pieces were more powerful than his magic though – he didn’t know much about them after all – so he could be doing nothing but this made him feel safer anyway. Plus, he didn’t think she would try anyway so this was entirely just a precaution to ease his paranoia.

“Okay, if it’ll make you feel better,” Hat Kid said before signing it.

Contract signed, Snatcher snapped, sending it to the secret room in the library that housed all his permanent contracts, the one not even the librarians could get into or knew the location of. “There, now consider yourself an official resident of Subcon.”

She froze for a second before an excited grin spread across her face. “Oh! I guess I am now, huh? Wow! Thank you.”

Before he could stop her, she hugged him. He sighed and tolerated it for a few seconds but as he reached for her shadowy cape to pull her off, she let go. Good, she was learning that _at best_ hugs were only allowed to last for a few seconds. No hugs at all would be better but he’d take what he could get.


	12. Soon

Unable to do much more than lie in bed and recover, Mu had a lot of time to think – a TV had been moved into the room but it could only do so much to distract her from her thoughts. A lot of time to think was never a good thing. It brought doubts and fear and bad memories as well as a host of other things she’d rather not think about.

Was stealing the Time Pieces _really_ a good idea? Maybe Hat Kid was right, maybe time travel was dangerous enough to make using the Time Pieces not worth it? … That _couldn’t_ be the case though, could it? The Mafia were _horrible_ people, the worst Mu had ever known… not that she knew many peoples, just the Mafia and island people who the Mafia were now oppressing and driving to extinction. So, it _was_ worth the risk to get rid of them.

But Hat Kid knew _much_ more about the Time Pieces so she’d know best, wouldn’t she? She was selfish though… right? She didn’t want to use them to stop the Mafia because she wanted their power all to herself… maybe? Mu didn’t really know her that well so… maybe not? Maybe she was right to keep the power of the Time Pieces out of everyone else’s hands? Maybe _Mu_ was the one who was wrong? …

And _this_ was why she didn’t like being given time to _think_ about things. The Time Pieces were here last resort. Just a kid and alone, she couldn’t do much more than mildly annoy the Mafia. She _needed_ something else, she _needed_ the Time Pieces if she wanted to change the situation on the island in any way at all. And yet now she was starting _almost_ doubt if stealing them was a good idea. _Ugh_!

“I hate this,” she complained next time the Doctor – she’d settled on thinking of and referring to her by her title because she didn’t know Mu’s real name and never would so… it just felt right – came in to check on her.

“I know,” she replied with a sorrowful look and tone. Being cared for by her was honestly the _worst_! Not because she awful or mean or really bad in anyway, she was quite nice – which actually made it worse in a way; indifferent would’ve been better. But… being so dependent on her for everything was _horrible_. “You’re recovering quite nicely though. Soon, you should be able to walk around freely.”

She was already starting to be allowed to walk around again, only with help though. Months spent in bed with her legs broken, one far worse than the other made for a pretty awful experience with walking. She _was_ getting better though, seemingly without any real permanent damage too. But it wasn’t fast enough, Mu wanted to be recovered _now_. So… “How soon?”

“I don’t know for sure but I do know it’s soon. So just hold on for a little longer, okay?”

Mu might not _have_ a little longer. “As soon as I’m able to walk on my own, I can leave, right?” She wanted _out_ of here.

“No, you’ll still be recovering. Once you’re doing well again then we can talk about possibly leaving. But… you don’t have to leave. You said you don’t have any parents, I would gladly…”

“Thank you,” Mu interrupted because she didn’t want to hear the rest of that thought. “I appreciate it,” she _did_ , no one had ever mentioned such a thing before, “but I need to leave. I have important things I need to do.” Like avenging her parents and everyone else on the island by taking down the Mafia.

The Doctor let out a long-suffering sigh. At least she’d given up on trying to get Mu to talk about those important things or what had happened to her. Mu had no idea where this was but she knew from the way the Doctor looked, dressed, and spoke that she wasn’t an islander. And the breeze that came through the window when it was opened lacked the smell of the sea, meaning they weren’t on the island and probably not anywhere near it. All of which meant, the Doctor was an outsider. Outsiders _never_ seemed to care about what happened to the island people when the Mafia came; they were all _selfish_ and lazy. So telling the Doctor anything about it would only get Mu more useless pity and she already had more than enough of that.

Soon she’d be recovered enough to leave though, either via sneaking out and running away or being let go. After that she’d be free to hunt down Hat Kid’s crashed ship and steal the Time Pieces. And _then_ she’d finally get rid of the Mafia and all the other bad guys. Very soon, she just had to be patient for a little while longer.


	13. Greetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I started pretty much 100% making stuff up as I go because I had a vague idea for this fic up until this point and Mu seeing Hat Kid again. When I wrote this and onward, it's all new to me, excluding the Mu and Hat Kid scene. So I guess in a way you could say the adventure starts here, we'll all see where this goes and what happens and hopefully it's good. I'm having fun writing it though so how good it is doesn't really matter, especially since the big cushion of chapters I have already written means I have plenty of time to edit and fix things that need fixing to make them as good as I can without driving myself insane. I hope y'all continue to enjoy it. :)

Hat Kid _may_ have gone around the forest, telling every Subconite and dweller she came across that she was officially a resident of Subcon now too; she’d signed a contract and everything. She was welcome here; this was her new home. It was… strange to be so relieved about that after all the work she’d put into gathering the Time Pieces so she could leave. That had been before her death though, before she’d technically failed the final test to become an official space pilot. She’d miss her one friend at the school – everyone else in her classes had been older and had thus resented her for being better and younger than them – but… that was okay; Bow would do just fine without her.

It was nighttime – or the darker part of night, depending on how one viewed the everlasting magical darkness in the forest – when she finally returned to her ship, still supported by Snatcher’s magic vines. She’d have to talk to him about building a space dock here soon because even if this was her home now, she still wanted to go out and visit other planets sometimes. Maybe Snatcher would even be willing to come with her on a few adventures. _That_ would be exciting! They’d probably have to be short adventures though because he needed to protect his forest from his crazy ex and other people who might try to do bad things to it if he left for too long but…

“Subcon’s newest resident, hello.”

She froze, her hand reaching for the door on top of her ship. She looked up and around but… no one was here. Unless they were under the ship.

A form appeared before her; grey skin, strange shaped head, tattered clothing that had perhaps once been fancy, _very_ strange eyes, and no legs. And… were those chains on his wrists? “When one greets you, typically you are expected to return the greeting,” he said.

“Uh… hello?” Hat Kid wasn’t sure about this but… this guy wasn’t _necessarily_ a bad guy. “Who are you?”

“I am Moonjumper. I hail from the horizon” He put a disformed hand to his chest and bowed slightly. “You go by Hat Kid, correct?”

“Yeah, how do you know that?”

“I’ve been watching you and Lukas. He’s basically adopted you even though he won’t admit it. It’s _very_ cute.”

“Uh…” Hat Kid took a ‘step’ back, suddenly even more unsure. “I don’t know anyone named Lukas.”

Moonjumper grinned. Whether it was an actual malevolent grin or a mischievous one that just seemed evil because that’s how his face looked, was hard to tell. “But you _do_ , you just don’t know that that’s his name.”

There were a lot of people she didn’t know the real names of – everyone on this planet seemed to want to go by their title for some reason expect for maybe DJ Grooves and that was probably a stage name – but there was really only one person he could be talking about, right? He _hadn’t_ basically adopted her but he was definitely being very accommodating in letting her stay in his domain. “You mean… Snatcher?”

“Bingo.”

Oh! … Hat Kid lifted her hands to hid the grin coming to her face. She knew Snatcher’s real name! … How she’d found out was kind of dirty though, wasn’t it? It’d been given to her by this stranger who was probably telling her to annoy Snatcher. Unless he was lying… she’d have to test it later.

“I can see you are very happy to know that,” Moonjumper said. “Would you like to know more?”

Yes! But… “How do you anything about him at all?” As far as Hat Kid could tell, Snatcher was very secretive about everything having to do with his past. So much so that even the people who knew the tale of the prince and Queen Vanessa didn’t know the prince’s name _or_ that he was Snatcher – she’d had to piece that out herself based off what she’d learned when she’d visited the manor. And even then, she hadn’t been sure until she’d confirmed it with him.

“His body is the vessel I am currently inhabiting.” Ah! Mystery solved _at last_! Was that a good thing or a bad thing though? “So, I know everything about him from when he was alive. He always wanted a daughter; seems he finally has one.”

It took Hat Kid a second to realize what he must mean by that. “I don’t think he sees me as a daughter.”

“Hmm… maybe not but maybe so too. It _has_ been a long time since he lost this body. He’s changed since then, not as much as he thinks though. I believe he still secretly wants a kid, someone to pass his wisdom on to. … Not that he’s very wise, he just thinks he is.”

Hat Kid couldn’t exactly argue with that. But one thing she _could_ argue with was… “Why are you just now introducing yourself to me? Can you only talk to official Subcon residents?” As much as she was enjoying learning about Snatcher, she also needed to know more about Moonjumper.

“Well, this is embarrassing but… when you first showed up, I was sleeping.” Meaning he wasn’t a ghost, right? Ghosts couldn’t sleep… except the Subconites could because they were possessing dolls and Moonjumper was possessing something too. A dead body but that probably still counted so… maybe he was ghost. “Not being able to pop in on you when you first entered kind of ruined my grand entrance idea so… I just let it go. But this is your home now so I need to introduce myself eventually. Besides, I’m getting rather bored, sitting around doing nothing, it’s time for something new.” He grinned again; mischievous or evil, it was still impossible to say for sure.

“Well uh… hello then. It’s good to finally meet you.” Copying his earlier move, Hat Kid put a hand to her chest and bowed slightly. “Thank you for telling me stuff about Snatcher.” She still wasn’t sure she trusted him or believed the things he’d said but… he didn’t seem too bad… maybe. She’d have to talk to Snatcher about him later. Not that Snatcher was the most reliable source of information on whether or not someone was good or bad since he disliked a lot of people for no reason and more often than not pretended to dislike the people he did like because he was just like that. “Can you tell me _more_?” She probably shouldn’t ask for more info but… she wanted know and it’s not like Snatcher would ever tell her anything about himself.

“Hmm…” Moonjumper lifted a hand to his chin in thought. “You probably already know he’s lawyer. He was known for being shrewd and sometimes harsh but fair and overall kind when alive. He was happy once upon a time too before Vanessa got her hands on him. She drove all his friends away, separated him from his family and orchestrated many of their deaths. Part of Lukas suspected but he didn’t know so I guess I don’t know for sure either. But I think she did, he just lied to himself about it because he’d convinced himself she was an angel. She’d sunk her claws so deep into him, escape would’ve been painful and he wasn’t willing to go through with it. Because of her, he even considered committing suicide a few times. Not _seriously_ , mostly just idle thoughts, but if he had then maybe…”

“Please stop,” Hat Kid interrupted. That… wasn’t the kind of stuff she wanted to know. “That’s _horrible_ , how can you sound so… so… like you don’t care?”

Moonjumper chuckled. “He’s the one who fell for her lies and false faces. He could’ve left at any time. He also considered that a few times when she first started isolating him and taking over his life, showing her true colours. He never did though even when his one last friend told him to over and over again. He got mad at her instead and she eventually died because of him, pretty horribly too, I think. In a way, everyone in Subcon died because of him. If he’d just…”

“ _Stop_ ,” Hat Kid interrupted again. “Why are you telling me this?”

Moonjumper shrugged. “You wanted to know more.” And apparently, he just liked being an upsetting asshole.

“Well… I don’t want to know anymore. And… and… it’s not even your stuff to tell. _Also_ , it’s _not_ Snatcher’s fault so _don’t_ blame him.” She didn’t know the specifics of what had happened but she did know that Snatcher couldn’t be held accountable for Vanessa’s actions. “So, _stop_ it.”

Moonjumper chuckled. “Whatever you say young one. I suppose I will see you later. Good bye for now.” He winked before his form faded and disappeared.

Hat Kid crossed her arms as she looked all around at the burning forest surrounding her and her ship. He was gone, no trace of him remained. Was he still watching somehow though? … Possibly. Didn’t matter though, did it? She needed to go talk to Snatcher, confirm some things, apologize for other things.


	14. Names

“Lukas!”

Snatcher flinched, slamming his book shut as he looked around. It was Hat Kid. Of _course_ it was her.

“So, it’s true that’s your real name?” she said as she stepped fully into the hollow now.

Snatcher would’ve denied it but he’d already given himself away with his reaction. It hadn’t been fair though; he hadn’t known it was coming. So instead he glared at her as he put his book down on the table. “How did you find that out?” He had a sneaking suspicion who might’ve told her.

“A weird guy named Moonjumper told me.” Yep, that asshole was back. It had been at least a decade since he’d last caused problems so really it was overdue by now.

“What _else_ did he tell you?” Snatcher asked because there was no possible way that was it.

“Uh… a few things actually. But first, what exactly _is_ he? Is he a ghost or… something else?”

Snatcher held back a groan of frustration. “Honestly kid, I really don’t know. There are like three books written that mention him and the only thing they can agree on is he possesses corpses taken from dying people.” Snatcher probably knew more than anyone who’d ever written a book about Moonjumper. Maybe _he_ should write a book about it one day, not that he actually knew enough for a full book on the subject. “But what _else_ did he tell you?” He _needed_ to know because Moonjumper knew a _lot_ of stuff that Hat Kid would be better off not knowing for her own sake as well as Snatcher’s.

“Well he told me he’s possessing your body which solves _that_ mystery. _But_ um… is that a good thing? Did he steal it or… what? If so was it before or after you uh… died?”

There was no point keeping it a secret, huh? It wasn’t really something he wanted to talk about though so he’d make it quick. “No, I gave it to him while I was dying.” Things she’d said previously made it clear she knew where and how that had happened, meaning he thankfully didn’t need to elaborate or give any reasons he’d agreed to such a deal. “In exchange he freed me and gave me power. It was worth it.” Even with all the trouble Moonjumper liked to cause whenever he could, that deal was still worth it. Snatcher might not have ever escaped without it – Vanessa might’ve tried to keep him alive and/or easily trapped his powerless ghost – and that thought was one of the most horrifying things he could think of.

The look on Hat Kid’s face said she agreed. “Oh… that’s okay then. But uh…” she blushed a little. “He _may_ have also said something about you wanting a daughter and he _may_ have suggested that I was fulfilling that role.”

Snatcher groaned, that wasn’t something he wanted brought up ever again. “That was a long time ago when I was alive. I don’t want kids anymore and I _certainly_ don’t see you as one.” Even if he did feel sorry for her and maybe even cared about her a little tiny bit – after making her an official resident of Subcon he couldn’t exactly say he didn’t anymore. “So don’t listen to him, he’s just trying to cause trouble.”

“Oh.” She seemed disappointed. “That’s… kind of what I thought was the case anyway. But um…” She looked down, tapping her fingers together. “The _last_ things he told me was stuff about your relationship with Vanessa. Stuff I… didn’t want to know and _shouldn’t_ know. And he was very… uncaring about it which wasn’t right.” She looked back up at him with a sorrowful expression. “That’s not even his stuff to tell so he _shouldn’t_ have. I’m really super sorry that he did especially since it was me who asked for more info about you. So I’m _really_...”

“It’s fine kid,” Snatcher interrupted. “I’m sorry he told you too. You don’t need to know that stuff.” _Hopefully_ he hadn’t told her too much of the nitty gritty details because that stuff wasn’t suitable for a child to know. And was something he’d prefer no one knew. “Let’s _not_ talk about it though _please_.” The less he even thought about the ice bitch, the better.

Hat Kid took a deep breath before nodding. “All right.”

“Good.” Snatcher let himself relax back into his chair. “Now that’s all he told you? He didn’t talk about other things?” Like try to get her to join him on the horizon or manipulate her into causing trouble because he had a tendency to do those things too.

“Uh no… I kind of told him to not tell me anymore because I didn’t want to know and didn’t _need_ to know. And then he left.”

“Whatever then. Next time he pops up, tell him to peck off right away. He’s a piece of shit, _never_ talk to him unless it’s to tell him to leave, okay? If it becomes a problem, I can make you a bracelet or something laced with magic that’ll keep him away.” He’d done so for all the Subconites ages ago. In hindsight he perhaps should’ve done that for her too to prevent this nonsense but he hadn’t thought to.

“Hmm… okay. But anyway, now that I know your name, it’s only fair you know my name, right? It’s Spensa.”

“Spensa, huh?” Snatcher never would’ve expected to be just be handed that information. There was no reason for her to lie though, was there?

“Yep.”

“That’s a dumb name, kid. You sure got screwed over on that one. No wonder why you go by ‘Hat Kid’ all the time, I would too if I were you.”

“Hey! You’re a big meanie, you know that?”

“Yep, I sure am kiddo. I would’ve thought you’d be used to that by now but I guess not. That’s okay though, the world needs stupid people too sometimes.”

She lifted her hands to either side of her head to wriggle her fingers as she stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at him. “I suppose you’re right though; the world does need stupid people sometimes. I mean what would happen to the forest and the Subconites if you weren’t here to protect them?”

“Did you just imply that I’m…”

“Stupid,’ Hat Kid cut in, smiling brightly up at him. “Yep, I sure did. What are you going to do about it?”

He frowned at her. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I _can_ do about it so lucky you.”

“Good! But do feel free to call me by my name. I won’t call you by yours unless you’re okay with it.”

“I would prefer you _didn’t_.” Not that he could stop her from doing so should she chose to.

“All right, I won’t then. And I won’t tell anyone either, I promise.” _Hopefully_ she’d keep that promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gold star to anyone who knows what book series I'm referencing with Hat Kid's real name.


	15. Books

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, it's been a while since the last update, huh? I just haven't been in the mood to edit and I got writer's block for where am in this fic right now.

Surprisingly all Hat Kid had to do to get Snatcher to take her to the library again was ask. And even more surprisingly, he barely even complained before teleporting them there.

It was again very cool and fascinating to look around at the large books in their giant bookcases, lit only by the occasional magic candle. And it was a secret! She never would’ve even guessed such a place existed if Snatcher hadn’t told her about it and brought her here. It had to be underground somewhere, right? But _what_ part of the rather large forest was it under? She’d probably never know and didn’t need to.

“I want to read the books you mentioned the other day about the Moonjumper guy,” she said, titling her head up to look at Snatcher. Moonjumper hadn’t appeared to her since that time but it was probably only a matter of time before she saw him again. “And then I want to find a good fiction book. … Can I borrow multiple books at once? You know I’m super careful and responsible with them now, right?”

Snatcher sighed as he moved them to different part of the library. “Fine.” He pulled three books off the shelf and handed them to her, shrinking them while he was at it. “Here are the books that mention that asshole. They’re not super informative so don’t expect much. One of them is particularly bad for other reasons but it’s whatever, I’m sure _you_ won’t care.”

One of the books was a book about folklore, presumably Moonjumper was one of them. The other two seemed to be about powerful beings in general. The folklore book looked almost new.

“Thank you,” Hat Kid said, looking back up at him. “And now a fun book too?” She didn’t want to push her luck but reading the history book revealed to her that while nonfiction was good and informative, fiction was more fun and therefore better to relax with.

“Yes, fine, go find one. If I didn’t need to get it down for you, I’d let you run off but ugh… whatever, make it fast.”

Hat Kid smiled at him before running off, leaving him to follow.

***

It was _dumb_ but Snatcher was glad to see Hat Kid so excited about books and reading. He’d converted her into being a book nerd, just like him. Not as much but given enough time perhaps so. Now if he could get her interested in law too…

Nope, that wasn’t something he should care about because he certainly wasn’t going to teach her law or anything else. Hat Kid was a nuisance. One he had to put up with because she was a ghost and ghosts weren’t tolerated many places outside of Subcon Forest. So he was stuck with her. He shouldn’t care that he’d got her into books and most certainly shouldn’t be considering trying to get her into _other_ things too. She was nothing to him… or least that’s how things were supposed to be.

Maybe the thing she’d said Moonjumper had said about his feelings for her was right? He _did_ use to want a kid one day, specifically a daughter. … Nope! That was when he was alive. He was _barely_ the same person anymore. The only desire of his that was the same as when he’d been alive was the desire to rule over and protect his people. That was a princely/ruler thing though, all his personal desires were different. These days all he wanted on a personal level was more souls to eat and to be left alone by everyone else.

“What’s your favourite book?” Hat Kid asked, pulling his gaze back down to her. “ _Fiction_ book,” she added as he opened his mouth to name his favourite law book – the one _he_ wrote because he was biased and not ashamed to admit it.

Coming up with his favourite fiction book was a lot harder. … He could think of a lot of good ones, some of the not suitable for a child to read though both in level and content so… “Are you asking out of curiosity or for a recommendation?”

“Both.”

“Hmmm…” He listed off a string of book titles that undoubtedly meant nothing to her. He didn’t even bother trying to come up with books that would be suitable for her, just listed all the good ones that came to his mind.

“You can go on about this for a long time, can’t you?” Hat Kid eventually cut in.

“I’ve read a lot of books kid, asking me for a favourite or a recommendation probably isn’t a good idea.” Especially since he didn’t yet know what kind of books she actually liked. “I could lecture you about the law for hours on end too if you want.” Or a myriad other things, he’d been an avid scholar back in the day and still was in a way. He had a lot of knowledge about a lot of different things.

“Um, as interesting as sitting through long lectures about the law sounds, no thanks. Give me a book with aliens in it though. I want to know what you guys think beings from outer space might be like.”

Snatcher shrugged and teleported the first book he could think of that fit that criteria to hover in the air in front of her, shrinking it down to normal size in the process. Her face lit up.

“It’s got a pretty cover,” she said as she grabbed it and placed it on top of stack of books.

“Yeah, it’s a collector’s edition so don’t you _dare_ damage it.” If she hadn’t already proven herself trustworthy with his books, he wouldn’t have ever dreamed of lending it to her.

“I won’t, I _promise_. Thank you for letting me borrow your books.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He’d brought her mostly as an excuse to visit his library. His ability to just teleport the books to himself meant he didn’t have cause to visit it often. He should try to make a point to do that more just for the sake of it.

“But um… you can change your size and stuff, will I be able to do that soon if I eat enough souls? _And_ what about changing the size of other things? Like you do with your books. Because if I have enough magic to do _that_ then I can take my own books off the shelf and all you have to do is take me here and get me out.”

“I don’t know if I’d trust you alone in my library.” It would make it easier on him though. “But yeah, in theory after you eat enough souls you should be able to do those things. I don’t know how many so don’t ask. You have your books now though and it should keep you occupied for a while so we’re done here.”

Before she could protest, he teleported them back to the surface and into his large reading hollow. “Now shoo.” He made a shooing gesture towards her as he settled into his chair and teleported a book to himself to read.

“Okay, see you later. And uh… you still need to teach me how to snatch souls sometimes so don’t forget. Bye!” She waved before turning to leave.

He scowled after her as she floated off towards her ship. He _hadn’t_ promised though, he’d said maybe. Even if internally he’d known that meant ‘yes’, _she_ shouldn’t know that so she shouldn’t presume it to be so. Maybe he wouldn’t teach her after all. … Though really, it depended on how he felt when a teaching opportunity came up.

***

Without fixing the ship to occupy her anymore, Hat Kid sat on her bed to read. She was starting to take after Snatcher, huh? Reading because she didn’t have anything else to do and _enjoying_ it. Who knew books could be so much fun? She would have to try to get her TV and game system working again soon too though. Maybe she could even convince Snatcher to play videogames with her. She couldn’t really imagine him doing it but it’d be tons of fun if he did.

For now though, she placed her stack of books on the bedside table. She put the pretty alien book aside and put the other three on her bed in front of her. She’d read all of them but for now, she was going to read the parts about Moonjumper.

**A couple hours later**

Snatcher had been right, they weren’t exactly the most informative. The sections on Moonjumper in all three books weren’t long and were almost entirely speculative in nature. There were only two things all three books agreed on. The first was that Moonjumper liked to cause mischief, sometimes very harmful and _bad_ , other times just harmless confusion and mild annoyance. The second was that he interacted with the physical world by stealing a body from a dying person and that his presence corrupted the body until it was no longer inhabitable at which point he got a new one.

What he was exactly, where he came from and even whether or not he was native to this planet were all unknowns. The books didn’t even speculate much, mostly just stating that no one knew nor was anyone likely to ever find out because Moonjumper apparently talked to very few people and had never revealed that information nor did he seem likely to. It was dumb.

Hat Kid could possibly ask him and _maybe_ get some information. But… after that first time she’d talked to him she really didn’t want to because he might start telling her things for the sole purpose of being upsetting again. She didn’t trust him one bit. So with an annoyed sigh she picked up one of the books again. While looking through the table of contents, she’d seen a chapter about Snatcher that she wanted to read. The folklore book had such a chapter too. It was unlikely that she’d learn any new information but whatever, it shouldn’t take too long to read anyway.

**An hour later**

She slammed the folk lore book shut with a scowl. She couldn’t _believe_ how inaccurate it’s chapter about Snatcher was. It _claimed_ that he’d worked with Vanessa to freeze the forest, killing everything so he could take control of it all. It was a _disgusting_ lie, how could they possibly suggest such a thing? The other book had at least had the decency to say no one knew where the Snatcher – called the Soul Snatcher at one point before it had gotten shortened in part due to the fact that he occasionally snatched other things too – had come from.

It did call to mind the question of why no one remembered the prince, aka Lukas, anymore but Vanessa’s name was still well known. Of course part of that had to do with the fact that Vanessa was still alive – effectively anyway, it was hard to tell for sure, though it was possible with magic. But… why had Snatcher been so persistent about erasing his past as the prince? So much so that no one even knew his name anymore and people confused him for having allied with Vanessa when she’d killed an entire kingdom’s worth of people?

Well, his past wasn’t a good one. Maybe he was just… burying it because he wanted to pretend it never happened. Hat Kid wasn’t an expert on such things but she was pretty sure that that wasn’t a healthy way to deal with that kind of stuff. … She’d give him a hug later, maybe help him feel a bit better.


	16. Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, sorry for how long it's been since an update, I've hit a pretty severe a writing slump so writing and editing stuff is drastically slower now.

It was a deer, stuck in the swamp but not a part deep enough to fully engulf its head, just up to its chest. It was clearly stuck though, too weak to even fight anymore.

“Can’t we save it instead?” Hat Kid asked looking up at Snatcher hovering over her.

“We _could_ pull it out of the swamp,” he replied, his tone making it clear he wasn’t going to. “But it wouldn’t save it. It’s old and frail and undoubtedly swallowed some swamp water by now. So it’s _going_ to die soon no matter what we do so we might as well use as a learning experience. Normally I would’ve put it out of its misery as soon as I found it but you’re the one who asked me to teach you how to snatch souls, so I figured I’d teach you with this since it should be easy to do.”

“It’s… not an awful death though, is it? Like, I _am_ going to be putting it out of its misery and not making it worse even for a little bit, right?”

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s a painless death, certainly very quick. Now go up to hover in front of it.” He made a small shooing gesture at her. “And hurry up, I don’t have all day.”

Hat Kid did as she was told. It didn’t react to her until she was right up in its face, shifting its eyes towards her and snorting. It didn’t seem to be afraid of her though? She couldn’t tell, hopefully not. She reached out a hand to pet it, hoping to comfort it. Its fur was so soft and warm, _alive_ , unlike her.

“Very good,” Snatcher said. “Now if you focus, you should be able to sense its soul. It’s a dumb animal so its soul is weaker, making it harder to sense than a person’s soul but that also makes it easy to pull out.”

Hat Kid turned her head to give him an angry look. “Don’t call it dumb just because it’s an animal. It’s smart it its own way.”

He frowned, crossing his arms in annoyance. “I meant dumb as in not fully sentient and unable to speak, don’t get offended.”

“Oh well… you could’ve just said that.”

“Whatever, just snatch its soul before it dies because once its dead, unless you grab the soul right as it leaves its body, its useless to you.”

Hat Kid turned back to the deer. She couldn’t really sense anything from it though… No, when she really tried, she could maybe kind of sense something? But it could just be her imagination. This… wasn’t the kind of sense she normally had but… “Uh… I think I sense its soul? Now what?”

“Snatch it. Reaching towards the deer with you hand might help.”

Hat Kid wasn’t sure about this but… she tried anyway; reaching a hand towards the deer with the intent to ‘snatch’ its soul. And… it worked. She felt like she was grabbing something small and weak and pulling it out of something that resisted her but not much. And suddenly had a small glowing soul in her hand, about half the size of the Mafia souls Snatcher had given her had been. The deer of course was still alive, she knew from experience that it was possible to live without a soul, for a time at least.

“Now eat it,” Snatcher said.

Well, she didn’t have much choice, did she? And it would put the poor deer out of its misery so… She shoved it into her mouth.

It was _delicious_ and swallowing it filled her with energy and an overall good feeling. It was noticeably less than the Mafia souls but still a nice feeling. But she’d snatched her first soul, she was well on her way to being a proper scary ghost.

“Very good,” Snatcher said as she turned back to face him. Was that a small amount of _pride_ in his voice or was she just imagining things? “Now, any animal that wonders in, you can have, I don’t really need them.”

She smiled at him. “How generous of you.”

“Don’t get used to it kid, I’m not a generous person.” _Lies_ , he was being all kinds of generous to her despite constantly saying stuff like that. But pointing that out would only annoy him.

“Now uh…” Hat Kid turned back to the deer. It was dead, mercifully but… “Can we bury the poor deer now. I feel bad for it.”

“Don’t, it’s…”

“ _Please_ ,” she interrupted, turning to face him again and give him her best puppy dog eyes.

He sighed and groaned but… “ _Fine_. We’ll bury the damn deer, give it a funeral if you want, I don’t care.”

“Thank you.”

After burying the deer, a process that Snatcher’s size and powers made quite easy and quick, Hat Kid felt much better about it. She wasn’t going to make a habit out of eating animal souls, only ones that were in situations similar to the deer’s but it wasn’t much different than eating meat, right? It was sustenance, kept her going, gave her a bit more power.

“Can I use magic now?” she asked as they floated away from the grave they’d made by the swamp back towards her ship.

“You can try,” Snatcher replied. “Gesturing makes it easier so do that.”

“What kind of magic can I do though? Same as yours? Or something different? I know your crazy ex has ice magic, I don’t want that because you and Subconites wouldn’t like it.” And the last thing she wanted was to make any of them uncomfortable after how wonderful they were all being to her, especially Snatcher.

“Well, you’re a ghost, so you probably use shadow magic. You’re an _alien_ ghost though so who really knows? Just try using magic and see what happens, if anything.”

“I guess you’re right.” Hat Kid stopped moving, making Snatcher stop too. She glanced around at the forest surrounding them, quite familiar now and in a way comforting. She wanted a specific target, might make it a bit easier. … Ah, that fallen branch should do nicely.

She focused on it and gestured with her hands much like how she’d seen Snatcher do, thinking about one of Snatcher’s blast attack shooting up under it. … Nothing happened. Hmm… She tried again, thinking instead about a blast of magic in general.

A part of her energy drained as a small puff of something came up from underneath her target. It wasn’t much and she wasn’t even sure what she’d done but the branch quivered a bit and even a small bit of bark clinging to it partially splintered. Smiling wide, she turned back to look at Snatcher.

He looked pleased? Proud of her? Something positive for sure that he was trying not to show on his face but failing. “Very good kid,” he said, his tone sarcastic. “You made it shake a little, that’s _real_ impressive.”

“Thank you!” She was proud of herself. She had _magic_. She’d be blasting things to bits in no time. … Okay, maybe not no time, but certainly eventually she’d be strong and intimidating with her magic.

“Nah kid, don’t get ahead of yourself, I was joking. That was about as impressive as an ant’s fart. You got a _long_ way to go before you can actually do anything real.”

“It’s a start though, right?”

“Eh, I guess. _But_ attack magic is actually one of the harder kinds of magic to do. So perhaps try something a bit less ambitious. Like levitating something, that’s probably the easiest thing to do.” He even demonstrated by levitating the stick she’d tried to destroy, bringing it over to drop it in front of her.

She looked down at it and pointed. As she lifted her finger, she imagined the stick raising too. And it _did_. … A few inches because she lost focus in her excitement and let it drop.

“Did you see that?” she asked, looking back up at Snatcher.

“Yeah, uh-huh, you lifted it a _whole_ three inches off the ground, _wow_.” He slow-clapped. “Keep practicing kiddo, maybe you’ll get somewhere in like fifty years.”

Despite his condescending tone Hat Kid smiled up at him because she was pretty sure he _was_ proud of her too. “Is there anything else you can teach me about being a ghost? Like uh… can you teach me how to be scary? The thing you do with your contractors, spooking them and then getting them to do stuff for you, can you teach me how to do that? And when I have enough power to do it can you teach me how to make a pocket dimension and use it to travel? And can you…”

“Whoa kiddo.” Snatcher held up a hand to get her to stop. “That’s enough, I get the idea. You apparently think I’m some kind of teacher or something. Well I ain’t.” He crossed his arms to frown down at her. “I have better things to do then teach you stuff. I had to figure it all out by myself, you can too.”

“But…”

“Don’t give me that look. I’m not falling for it. And it’s not _nearly_ as cute as you seem to think it is so stop trying.”

“I’m just a kid though. And I’ll be super-duper good, I _promise_. And I’ll leave you alone for _hours_ , maybe even _days_ at a time in between you teaching me stuff. _Also_ , some of the stuff I want to learn, I can’t even _do_ yet, so it’s not like you’re going to be teaching all of it to me all at once. So pretty _please_ with giant cherries on top.” She put her hand together and gave him her best puppy dog eyes again because no matter what he said they’d worked on him before.

He scowled at her, meaning it was working because that’s the look that always came over his face when he got annoyed with himself for letting her convince him to do something. “ _Fine_ , but _only_ so you’ll leave me alone about it. _But_ if you complain about _anything_ while I’m teaching you, I’m done, no second chances.”

“I can do that. Thank you.” She hugged him. He groaned but tolerated it. She did let go before he chose not anymore though.

“Now leave me alone for a while, okay? I’m already regretting this decision.”

“Okay. See you later.” She smiled and waved at him as he vanished.

Feeling good from eating the soul, though a bit tired from experimenting with her newfound power, she started heading back towards her ship again. She was excited though, _happy_. For weeks after she’d died, she never thought she would be again. But here she was, happy and well on her way to being a proper spooky ghost.

She was just entering the clearing her ship was in when Moonjumper appeared before her again. He was smiling evilly too. … Hat Kid wasn’t going to let him ruin her good mood though.

“Peck off,” she said as he opened his mouth to say something. “I don’t want to talk to you, you’re a peck neck. So peck off.”

Moonjumper chuckled. “For one so young, you have an awfully foul mouth. I do not believe that is something your father taught you, he’s not much of a swearer, never was.”

Hat Kid lifted a hand to flip him off. That gesture probably wasn’t rude here but she didn’t care, the way she was using it should make clear her intentions with it. “I don’t want to talk to you. I have magic to practice with.” She moved on, floating past him.

“Very well, if you insist, I shall be on my way. Congrats on convincing your father to teach you how to properly rule the forest alongside him.”

She ignored him as she went into her ship. He was just trying to cause chaos so she wasn’t having it.


	17. Scary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, it's my birthday today (April 14th) so have another chapter. And it so happens to be probably my fav chapter of the fic so far, so that's cool. :)

“There,” Snatcher said as he tied the enchanted strand onto Hat Kid’s wrist that he should’ve given her a long time ago. But at least she had it now so Moonjumper couldn’t cause mischief through her either by telling her anymore things she _didn’t_ need to know or convincing her to do something she shouldn’t.

“Cool thanks,” she said with a smile as she took her wrist back to examine her new braclet.

“Now uh…” Snatcher sighed. “I… added a little something extra to that bracelet too.” And part of him was already regretting it. “With it, I can summon you to me whenever I please, just like I can with Subconites. And _you_ can…”

“Hey,” she interrupted with the gall to look offended. “You didn’t tell me you were going to do that.”

“Yeah, kiddo, but I don’t think you have to worry too much about me using it a whole lot, I _really_ don’t want you around anymore than you already are. In fact, I would prefer for you to be around _less_ often. But on top of that power and the whole repelling Moonjumper thing, it also gives _you_ the power to send stuff to me as long as it’s small. If you…”

“Wait what?” she interrupted again this time with far too much excitement. “ _Really_?”

“Yes, really. Go ahead and try it out I guess.”

She glanced around the hollow before leaving to pick up a stick from the ground. She looked at it intently for a few seconds before it vanished, appearing next to Snatcher instead before falling to the ground. He scowled at it before looking at Hat Kid again; the look on her face made him regret this decision even more.

“ _Only_ use it for important things,” he said, pointing at her as she reentered, probably readying to say something annoying. “If you abuse it even _one_ time, I _will_ take it away.” Though, he’d threatened the Subconites with that too and despite multiple offenses and _three_ whole coordinated attacks, never had. With her though, he meant it; tolerating nonsense from her encouraged it and made it worse so he was going to stick to his resolve on _this_ at least. “Understand?”

She gave him a disappointed look. “Okay. But… what kind of stuff do you want me to send?”

“Just… important things. Like if run into an emergency, send me something to let me know. Or when you finish one of your books, just send it to me so I don’t have to deal with you coming to talk to me about it. All right? No funny business.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be good, I promise. But speaking of being good, when do you start teaching me to be spooky?”

Ugh, Snatcher was _not_ in the mood for that. “Tomorrow.” He wouldn’t want to do it tomorrow either but best to get it over with sooner rather then later so he could have it done.

***

One second Hat Kid was chatting with Subconites in the Village, the next she was looking up at Snatcher. Confused, she glanced around. She was suddenly in an entirely different part of the forest, near the ruins.

“You summoned me with the thing?” she asked, looking back at Snatcher as she pointed the bracelet he’d given her yesterday.

“Yes,” Snatcher replied with a sigh. “You said you wanted me to teach you how to be scary so I am. If you want to complain about me doing it on _my_ time and not yours or about how I summoned you here go ahead.” He crossed his arms, clearly waiting for her to do so because he’d promised her complaining would lead him not doing it anymore.

“No that’s fine.” She smiled up at him because she wasn’t going to fall for that. The being abruptly summoned thing was a bit annoying but it was worth it. She was excited to learn to be a proper scary ghost like him.

“All right fine, let’s begin then I guess. First, you don’t have enough power to make yourself large or change you shape much yet meaning if you want to be scary you need to learn how to turn your cuteness scary.”

“You think I’m cute?”

“No, but I know a lot of people would. They’re wrong by the way, there’s nothing about you that’s actually cute. You’re not even ugly in any remarkable way either, just plain and uninteresting.” He _almost_ sounded like he believed that.

“Oh yes, ‘plain and uninteresting’ says the noodle ghost.”

Snatcher scowled at her as she smiled up at him. “For the last time, I am _not_ a noodle. If you’re going to compare my shape to anything it should be snake.”

“Danger noodles!”

His mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile at that. “Nuh-uh,” he said shaking a finger at her. “We’re not playing this game. I refuse to put up with it so we’re going to get on with the lesson and get it over with as soon as possible.”

“Whatever you say Mr. Noodle sensei.” She saluted him. “I await your instructions.”

“I hate you.”

Hat Kid giggled and broke the salute to blow a raspberry at him, earning an eye twitch. She wasn’t complaining though and he hadn’t said her being annoying was a reason to call off the lesson so he wasn’t allowed to yet.

He put his hands together and took a deep breath before speaking. “Have you ever seen any horror movies that feature children?”

“Nope.” She wasn’t really much of a movie person. “I didn’t even know movies like that existed.”

“Well they do because children can be _horrifying_ if they’re cast in the right light and act and talk a certain way. Which I guess is what I’m going to be teaching you how to do. You’ve already done some acting in movies so _hopefully_ it shouldn’t be too hard. Give me your best scary laugh.”

Hat Kid took a deep breath out of habit and did so, giving him her best interpretation of how he laughed. She wasn’t great at it in part because she couldn’t make her voice loud enough for it to be truly effective. But she had practiced it in her room a few times, before and after her death, so she wasn’t horrible at it either.

“Nope kiddo, the way you’re going to be scary is different than the way I’m scary. We already established that. That kind of laugh from someone like you comes off as a cute attempt at being intimidating and is only going to endear people to you. Try this instead.” He giggled but it wasn’t in his voice but a voice that sounded an awful lot like hers. She’d _never_ giggled like that though, it _was_ creepy.

“How do you do that with your voice?”

“I have no vocal cords so with a little bit of willpower and focus I can make any sound I want. You can too, try it.”

That was true, she didn’t have vocal cords anymore so in theory she could make whatever sound she wanted. So she took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes to center herself, unable to help the smile forming on her face at her plans. She took one more big breath and… “AHAHAHAHA FOOOOOOOOL!” she shouted, forcing her voice to sound like Snatcher’s when he caught someone in his trap. It left her with a weird tickling feeling in her throat though that made her cough a bit even though she shouldn’t really need to.

Snatcher was grinning wide now. “Yeah, real cute kid, you sounded just like me.”

“Thank you!”

“Now, are you here just to imitate my laugh or do you do you actually want to try to be scary? If it’s the former you already got that down and I can just leave so honestly I’d prefer that one.”

“Nope, I’ll be serious now.” She wanted to be scary and powerful like him. She wanted to be able to help protect what was now her home should she need to. She wanted to be able to put on a show and be flashy the way he liked to do because it looked like fun. Basically, she just wanted to be like him in general because they were both ghosts, he was cool and she liked him and he was basically her mentor now, right? Wanting to take after him wasn’t a bad thing, right? … If it was, she didn’t care. “Teach me please.”

“I knew you’d say that.” He didn’t sound too terribly disappointed though. He was having fun too even if he didn’t want to admit. That was fine though, he was just like that.

First, he had her practice a creepy laugh until he was satisfied with it being creepy enough. Then he taught her a few more so she wouldn’t get repetitive. From there learning to talk in a creepy cadence was easy. She wouldn’t know what things to say that were creepy or scary but they’d deal with that later.

Next, he started teaching her how to hide and sneak properly in the shadows. She had just enough power to disappear into them for a short time. He also taught her the more mundane tricks of hiding behind the trees while being able to see anyone on the path and follow them without drawing attention.

Then, he taught her how to project her voice, make it sound like it was coming from somewhere else or multiple places. It wasn’t a tactic he used often because he didn’t need to in order to scare people but would supposedly be useful to her with her size and ‘supposed’ cuteness.

And that was where he finally called an end to the lesson because… “That’s probably all I can teach you, right now.” Despite how reluctant he’d been to teach her and how much he’d complained about it before hand he seemed to have enjoyed it. “We’re going to have to watch horror movies later so you can hopefully pick up some stuff from that. Also, reading scary books is a good idea too. But other than that, until you gain enough power to do more magic, you’re probably about as scary as you can be right now.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him. She felt exhausted after all that and was looking forward to going back to her ship to relax in her bed and read a bit.

“You’re welcome, I guess. Now go get some rest, you deserve it.”


	18. Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where things start to get interesting. And by 'interesting' I mean, it starts to have the potential to go downhill or completely off the rails. I've always struggled with the endings of long fics because I never plan them, often at best I'll only have a shadow of an idea on how I want it to end. So here's to hoping it at least remains decent and mildly interesting if nothing else. (And also hopefully I can finish it, I'll be so disappointed in myself if I can't and it'll haunt me for years.)

Being allowed to leave the house after so long cooped up inside, unable to even get out of bed, was _amazing_. Mu never would’ve thought that just being able to stand and walk around could feel so good. And even lacking the familiar scent of the ocean, the breeze on her face as she stepped out through the front door was one of the greatest things she’d ever experienced.

With the Doctor hovering just behind her, she looked all around, more than ready to finally try to figure out just where in the world she was. It was a village or town with people and houses, most of them rather small, no signs of the Mafia anywhere. Several meters to her left was the edge of town, cutting off where a forest began. A dead forest shrouded in magical darkness. It could only be Subcon, right? Especially with the fence surrounding it and what looked to be ‘KEEP OUT’ signs nailed to it.

Was being near Subcon relevant though? Or had Hat Kid just dropped her off here because she’d been on her way to visit with Snatcher, her supposed BFF, in the forest? If the ship had landed _in_ Subcon Forest, getting to it might be a bit more difficult than she’d thought so _hopefully_ not. She didn’t want to deal with both Snatcher and Hat Kid if she didn’t have to.

Next, she looked up towards the clear blue sky. It had been far too long since she’d truly beheld it and… Hat Kid’s ship was no where to be seen up there. It might not have ever been visible from here but… she wasn’t sure.

“What happened to the spaceship that was in the sky?” she asked, turning her head to look at the Doctor. Such a question shouldn’t be suspicious, right? It’d be natural to be curious about that kind of thing.

The Doctor shrugged. “I don’t know. It vanished overnight a while ago. … Come to think of it, that was around the same time I found you on my doorstep. There are rumors that it crashed to earth but I doubt it. I think it probably just left.” That meant it had been visible from here though at least.

“Hmm… bummer, I wanted to meet the aliens on it.” Mu would have to ask around more later, see if she couldn’t find anyone who could point her in the approximate direction of where it landed. This town didn’t look too terribly big but _surely_ someone was around who’d witnessed it. She just had to find them. “But can I walk around town for a bit?”

“Uh… sure. I’ll stay with you to make sure you don’t push yourself though.”

That was mildly annoying but not a huge deal. Mu needed to ask around for information but she also wanted to just walk around and enjoy being outdoors again too. She could be patient on her information gathering for a bit. It might be a good idea to get a lay of the land around town first anyway.

She wasn’t allowed to wonder off on her own for another whole week. Though ‘allowed’ maybe wasn’t the right word; she snuck off while the Doctor was tending to other patients. But another full week left her recovered enough that she should be fine on her own. Heck, soon she should be able to leave entirely and go find the Time Pieces.

All the village people were rather friendly – far too friendly, if the Mafia ever came here they’d all be just as screwed as the island people had been; even more incentive to eradicate the Mafia – making them easy to chat with. No one she asked knew anything though and she couldn’t press too hard lest she make people suspicious.

She eventually wondered upon a children’s playground. She’d used to love playing in such places and part of her was tempted to swing for a bit but… she was on an important mission. Kids were the perfect people to ask about rumors and spaceships though, they tended to pay attention to everything that happened in and around town, more than most adults anyway. She chose a boy playing with little trucks and action figures underneath the slide who looked to be a few years younger than her… about the same age she’d been when the Mafia came to the island.

Shaking her head to banish that thought, she approached and crouched beside him. “Heyo,” she said, putting on a smile.

“Heyo,” he mimicked with a happy smile as he looked up at her. “Oh! You got a mustache! I thought only adults got those.”

Everyone on the island had mustaches; young or old. She didn’t have time to explain that though, nor did she care to so… “Yep, but I’m special. And because I’m special, I got an important question for you. You remember that space ship that used to be in the sky? What happened to it? I’ve been uh… a bit sick for a while now so I don’t know.”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, I remember it! It fell from the sky like… forever ago, I think. But I _saw_ it! I didn’t see it hit the ground but I saw it fall. It was _awesome_!”

Yes! Finally some good luck! “Really? That’s super cool. Can you tell me about where it landed?”

“It fell in the forest. Which is dumb because I wanted to go see it but I don’t want my soul snatched so I can’t go looking for it.”

Welp, she wasn’t so lucky after all, huh? Of _course_ it would fall into Subcon Forest though, why _wouldn’t_ it? Anywhere else would be too easy for Mu to get to and the world just _loved_ screwing her over. She’d find a way though, no matter what it took. And she’d do it soon too, she probably didn’t have much time left before Hat Kid got her ship fixed and left forever.


	19. Mentor

One of the Subconites had fallen in the swamp because despite countless warnings and prior intimate experience with the swamp, they still did that sometimes because they liked being idiots. His friends getting him out had caused even more damage to his body, his lower half was almost ripped entirely off. It was all superficial damage because it was solely physical but Snatcher still needed to fix it.

“How many times have I warned you about the swamp?” he asked as he got to work. The entire lower half wasn’t even worth saving so he just cut it away and started over.

“Uh… a lot. Sorry Boss.” And he probably _was_ sorry but that wouldn’t stop him from doing it again in a few years.

“Yeah, uh-huh.” Snatcher should really look into repairing the walk ways a little. They were meant to be dilapidated and unsafe but in recent years it was starting to get a bit too much. “Learn to be more careful because I don’t like doing this.”

“Sorry Boss.” That’s all they ever did when he was fixing them, apologize. It was a bit annoying. Before he could say so though a shocked gasp came from the doorway.

“What happened?” It was Hat Kid and she looked upset. Probably because Snatcher was holding half a Subconite.

“He fell into the swamp and his friends almost ripped him in half pulling him out,” Snatcher explained, letting his displeasure about that show in his voice. There wasn’t any other way they could’ve gotten him out but he shouldn’t have fallen in it the first place.

“Oh no, that’s sounds awful,” she said as she floated into the hollow. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Yep, I’ll be fine,” the Subconite said. “Boss is fixing me. And it doesn’t hurt, it’s just unpleasant.”

“Oh! … That’s good then. But… I would’ve thought you’d leave the doll when Snatcher’s fixing it. Or are you like… trapped in it or something?”

“Nope, I just don’t like leaving if I don’t absolutely have to. It’s scary, I don’t know how you and Boss handle it.”

“Most of them are like that kid,” Snatcher explained. “They only leave when they’re damaged enough that I need to make them a whole _new_ doll. Which isn’t the case here but I’m still rather busy so whatever you want will have to wait.” He looked back down at the Subconite and resumed his work, hoping she’d take the hint and leave.

She didn’t of course. “I actually just have a question. Can you talk and sew at the same time?”

Snatcher sighed, resigned to his fate. Though it wasn’t like lecturing the Subconite would change anything anyway. _Every_ time he had to repair major damage like this, he lectured them while doing so and it never seemed to have any effect. So, he might as well answer whatever dumb question Hat Kid had instead. “Yes.”

“Great! You know how you taught me to be spooky and even showed me some scary movies to help with that? Well, I’ve been practicing and I think I’m pretty good now, real scary. So uh… I was thinking that maybe the next time an intruder comes into the forest, maybe _I_ could handle them? Maybe even like have them do a contract for me, if that’d be okay. _If_ you’d be willing to teach me how the contracts work and stuff of course and help me write one up too. I have a little project I could really use some help with. I _could_ just do it myself, maybe or just ask you for help and I’m sure it’d be fine but… I want to try doing things the way _you_ do them because… well I just do. So can I, please?”

That wasn’t the kind thing Snatcher would’ve expected her to want. But he really was starting to get close to teaching her everything he knew, huh? “First, what’s your ‘little project’?”

“A dock for my ship so I can take off and land freely. It’s going to be hard to make one with forest stuff but I could probably get stuff from other places for it. I’m sure with a little help I could get one built pretty quickly. It won’t be super high tech or anything but it should be good enough, I got books in the machine room about it.”

“Wow Boss,” the Subconite cut in before he could reply. “She’s really starting to take after you, huh? You got her reading all the time and taught her how to be scary and now she wants to be like you with the contracts and stuff. You must be real proud.”

“He’s my mentor,” Hat Kid said far too cheerily.

“I never agreed to be your mentor,” he said as he looked up from his sewing to frown at her instead.

“But you _are_. You’re teaching me all kinds of stuff and it’s _great_ , thank you. _And_ even before you started teaching me, you’ve been giving me advice about things and you’ve let me move into the forest with you. That’s all very mentory things to do.”

True but ‘mentory’ wasn’t the only way such actions could be interpreted. But of the two big ones, that one was preferable so… “Fine, I’m your mentor, whatever. I wouldn’t say I’m proud of you though. You haven’t done anything worth being proud of yet and at the rate you’re going, I doubt you ever will.”

The Subconite giggled. “Keep telling yourself that Boss, you know it’s not true.”

“Well, you know what _is_ true?” Snatcher lifted the Subconite up to look him in the face. “The fact that I don’t have to finish fixing your body right now. I could put it off until tomorrow or some other day, leave you with no legs and no stuffing for a while, how would you like that?”

“Sorry Boss.” He didn’t sound very sorry though. “I’ll shut up now.”

“You better.” Snatcher lowered him back down to start working again. If only he’d lied and said he couldn’t sew and talk at the same time. “And you,” he turned his attention back to Hat Kid. “Sure, I guess I’ll teach you about contracts too. I _doubt_ you could make a magically binding one right now but I guess it doesn’t hurt to teach you how to do it anyway.”

Hat Kid looked far too excited about that. Once the lessons actually started there was no way it’d last though, it was _really_ boring stuff to people who didn’t enjoy it. “Yes, thank you! I won’t disappoint, I promise.” She rarely did. “And does that mean, I can also have the next intruder and make them do my evil bidding?”

“I suppose. I’m busy right now though so I can’t deal with you yet.”

“That’s fine. Can I watch though?”

“If you promise to stay quiet.”

“I promise to stay quiet,” she said in a whisper as she floated closer to settle on his chair’s armrest.

“You want me to teach you how to sew and knit sometime later too?” Snatcher asked with a sigh before the question could potentially come up. Though honestly, he wouldn’t mind teaching her at all. It was a very useful skill, not so much for most ghosts because they didn’t need clothes but it could still come in handy sometimes. And it was another nice way to peacefully pass the time; not being able to sleep made meditative activities even more worthwhile.

“Sure!” Hat Kid said still in a whisper. “You’re the best!”


	20. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of y'all follow my on my AHiT Tumblr and those of you who do, might not have seen the post announcing it but I've finished this fic, yay! I'm not 100% happy with all aspects of the climax and ending but that's often just what being a writer it like, things can't be perfect or exactly how I want them to be. Now it's time for daily update until the the ending so I hope y'all are ready for that.

It was time for Mu to go, she couldn’t risk waiting any longer. She was still a bit weak from extended bedrest but her injuries were healed and was doing better than ever. Venturing into Subcon Forest wasn’t ideal but peck it, she didn’t have a choice. If the Snatcher decided he wanted to bother her, she’d tell him to fuck right off because she wasn’t afraid of some dumb noodle ghost in a dumb cliché haunted forest. Once she had all the Time Pieces, she’d have more power than him anyway.

She waited until night before sneaking out. Of course she left a note, thanking the Doctor for everything and apologizing for leaving and promising to pay her back one day if she could. It hurt to go but Mu needed to do this. And things would be better for everyone if her plan succeeded so it was more than worth it.

Luckily the town was small so the number of people up and about past midnight was even less than Mu was used to from the Mafia. She only encountered one guy who didn’t even see her because she was being sneaky – she didn’t want word getting back that she’d gone into Subcon because then people would think she was dead and she didn’t want to put people through that, especially the Doctor.

She hesitated when she reached the edge of the forest. There wasn’t a gate despite the overgrown path leading in. Instead there were more ‘KEEP OUT’ signs nailed to the old rotting fence. Whoever put it up _really_ didn’t want people going in. It wasn’t going to stop her though; she had a mission to complete. So up and over she went, dropping down to the other side.

It was like stepping into a whole new world. Suddenly much darker, the night sounds were different: no more crickets chirping or owls hooting but instead the rustle of dead branches and the whistle of the wind around them, making for a rather spooky sound. Even the sky looked different, clouded and dark, only the full moon shone through – she could’ve sworn it had been a crescent before, was she going insane? And there were nooses hanging from the trees a bit further in, all empty, _thank_ goodness but the sight still wasn’t pleasant.

Mu wasn’t afraid though. It was all cliché spooky haunted forest stuff, she’d seen such places in movies all the time. … Bad, horrible, awful things _always_ happened to the people who ventured in though, often going against the audience yelling at them _not to_ because it was _obviously_ a dumb idea, only a moron wouldn’t realize that. And this place was _very_ real; the tale told of the Ice Queen and the Soul Snatcher, resulting in the deaths of an _entire_ kingdom, was a true one. Meaning this was _not_ a nice place _at all_ and was without a doubt the most haunted place on the planet and was often listed as one of if not the most dangerous too. So, maybe Mu _was_ a little afraid. _But_ she sure as hell wasn’t going to show it. She squared up her shoulders and lifted her head as started down the path, striding confidently.

She’d been walking for a while when she heard something off to her right. She glanced over but saw nothing. It was too dark. She _felt_ like she was being watched though, not the kind of feeling one wanted to have in the middle of the night in a haunted forest. Great, _just_ what she needed after finally almost banishing her fear.

She was just about to look away when something exited the shadows. A small ghost, wearing a top hat and look rather angry. “ _You_!” she shouted, her voice shrill with anger as she pointed at Mu. “What _peck_ are you doing here?”

Mu took a step back. That was voice was familiar other than the slight echo to it, so was the face despite its ghostliness. And the top hat and cloak with decorative zipper brought to mind… “Hat Kid?” she whispered. “B-but you’re a ghost. H-how?” There as _no way_ it was actually her, right? It was ghost child that just looked and sounded an awful lot like her… right? Because it _couldn’t_ be her because she couldn’t be dead.

“Because you _killed_ me you _pecking bitch_.” Hat Kid, if it really was her, ‘stepped’ closer and shoved Mu.

Mu stumbled and would’ve fallen if she hadn’t caught a tree branch hanging over the path. Normally she would’ve been mad but… it was Hat Kid and she was a ghost. A very angry ghost because… she’d died in the ship crash? The ship crash that was at least partially Mu’s fault.

“I… I didn’t mean for you to… for that happen… I…”

“I’m _going kill you_.” Somehow despite Hat Kid’s eyes now being nothing but light, they still managed to be filled with hate and killing intent. Enough to break Mu’s shocked paralysis.

She turned and run into the forest, heedless of the branches in the way, scratching at her clothes and face as she hurried to get away. Both to save herself but also to get away in general because it simply _couldn’t_ be true. Hat Kid _couldn’t_ be dead. This was just a bad dream; Mu hadn’t gotten _anyone_ killed. She’d never even actually killed any of the Mafia despite actively wanting them dead so there was _no_ way she’d killed someone she _didn’t_ want dead. So she’d run away from all this until the nightmare ended and she woke up.

***

“Wow kiddo, I knew you’d probably fail securing your first soul contract but even I didn’t think you’d fail quite that badly. You didn’t even wait for her to get caught in the trap _or_ try to be spooky like you were supposed to.”

Hat Kid turned to look at Snatcher as he came out of hiding too, her boiling rage shimmering down a bit now that Mu was out of sight. “I don’t care,” she said. She would’ve given chase but the look of pure terror and disbelief on Mu’s face had given her enough pause that she was now out of Hat Kid’s limited range of being able to sense living beings. Snatcher should know where she was though so it wasn’t an issue. “I _hate her_ , she got me _killed_.” She was used to be a ghost now and kind of enjoying some aspects of it so she wouldn’t have thought the sight of Mu would enrage her so much but it did.

“I know,” Snatcher said as he patted Hat Kid on the head which was surprising enough to calm her down even more because he’d never done that before. “And I understand. Hating the person who’s fault it is that you’re dead is very normal, I’d say it’s even healthy. Her soul’s all yours when we catch her.”

“Good! Now where is she?”

Snatcher opened his mouth to respond but paused. “Uh… I actually don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Can’t you sense everything living in the forest?”

“Normally yes but… I don’t sense anything in that direction anymore. She might’ve tripped and broke her neck. With how fast she was going it’s certainly possible.” That would be the most anti-climatic sucky thing _ever_ if so. But his tone suggested he didn’t believe that to be the case.

“Well… I’m going to go find her because I want her soul. If I have to do that the old-fashioned way than so be it.”


	21. It Was an Accident

Mu still wasn’t quite at full strength yet and it had been a while since she’d last exerted herself and thus it wasn’t long before she collapsed to the forest floor onto her hands and knees, gasping for breath. That kind of thing didn’t happen in dreams. Meaning this was very real and thus that Hat Kid was indeed dead. She’d had to have died in the crash, especially considering how _mad_ she’d been at Mu, saying Mu had _killed_ her.

Mu _hadn’t_ though. It wasn’t her fault. “It was… an accident,” she mumbled out loud to herself as she leaned back against a tree. “An _accident_.” She hadn’t intended for Hat Kid to get hurt at all, let alone _that_ badly. So she couldn’t be held accountable for it.

Except… she’d caused the crash. If she hadn’t snuck aboard the ship or pushed Hat Kid into the command console the ship never would’ve crashed and Hat Kid would still be alive. So even though it was an accident it was still _her fault_. And to think she’d been _mad_ at Hat Kid because she’d gotten ‘the better deal’ in the crash. It was the other way around though; _Mu_ was the lucky one, extraordinarily luck. She’d survived and was doing okay now while Hat Kid was _dead_.

How was that even possible? It shouldn’t be. Enemy now or no Hat Kid _had_ been Mu’s friend once upon a time. It had been a short friendship but she’d still been the first friend Mu had made since the Mafia had invaded and killed all her friends from before. And Mu’s actions had _directly_ led to her death.

She let out a sob as she pressed her forehead to her knees. She should get back up and resume running because Hat Kid was going to find her soon if she didn’t. She wanted to kill Mu and was probably justified in that desire. Mu didn’t want to die though so she should _move_ and get away but… she had trouble _really_ caring right now. So she just sat there and cried instead because _what else could she do_?

**[A short time later]**

“This is starting to get really awkward.”

Mu flinched and scrambled back up to her feet. How could she have let her guard lapse enough to let someone sneak up on her? The world around her was suddenly grey and thick impenetrable fog made a wall around her and the being who’d spoken. He had no legs and wore what might once been fancy clothes. His head was misshapen and his eyes coloured strangely.

“Though I suppose that is my fault,” he continued. “I should add an auditory competent to my intro so that even those who are not paying attention to their surroundings may be made aware of my presence. Perhaps a choir, singing a creepy Latin melody about the moon of course. Or maybe distant howling of wolves singing to the moon, normally a pretty sound but in the right circumstances, it can be bone chilling too. Which do you think would be better?” He turned his gaze back to Mu.

Getting caught sobbing was the worst way to be caught but hell if Mu was going let that define this interaction even if her tears still stained her face. “How about you don’t be a pecking creepy bastard instead?”

“Hmm… no, I’ve tried it a few times, it’s not very fun. Before we head any further into this conversation though we should introduce ourselves. I am Moonjumper, I hail from the horizon.” He gave her a slight bow as if they were at a ball or something.

Mu instinctively glanced around, looking for possible escape routes. But assuming the fog wall wasn’t magically made solid, how far out did it extend? Because running through fog that thick in unfamiliar territory would undoubtedly lead to tripping and crashing into all sorts of things, possibly getting turned all the way around too. So escape probably wasn’t an option here. At least it wasn’t the infamous Snatcher though so… “I’m Mustache Girl, call me Mu. Now what do you want?” Getting snappy with whoever or whatever Moonjumper was might not be smart but she didn’t care.

“I would like to know why you were crying.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It has something to do with Hat Kid, correct? She seems to think you killed her. You mumbled about it being an accident though.” He’d been _watching_ her. For how long though? “Which I’m _sure_ it is for I can’t imagine any scenario where one child would willingly murder another.”

“I-it _was_. I didn’t mean for _that_ to happen, I _didn’t_.” That didn’t make it any less her fault though now, did it? She _wasn’t_ going to start crying about it again though even if part of her wanted to.

“Yes, that is often the way of things. Now may I inquire about what your goal in entering the forest is? You were _clearly_ taken by surprise when Hat Kid jumped you so that must mean you didn’t come here to talk to her. Unless you did and her ghostly form is what surprised you.”

This guy had been watching her since even before Hat Kid had jumped her? So… like right when she entered for very close to it. … The forest really wasn’t her habitat, huh? She couldn’t wait to get back to the island where she knew every nook, cranny, alleyway, and shortcut; _no_ one could sneak up on her or follow her there without her noticing.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“I am curious and depending on what it is, I might be willing to assist you.”

“Why?”

“First, you’re a sad child, what heartless monster wouldn’t want to help a child they find alone in the words crying? Second and most importantly, you seem to be in opposition to Hat Kid who is aligned with Lukas who I happen to enjoy occasionally causing trouble for.”

“Who’s Lukas?” As far as Mu knew Hat Kid had never had a friend by that name, she’d have heard of it. Though it was possible the friendship had been made _after_ her death.

“The former owner of the body I’m possessing. Which is actually why I like messing with him so much; he had some pretty bad self-esteem issues leading up to his death, it makes me inclined to dislike him. The feeling is mutual though; he doesn’t like me either despite everything I did for him.”

That didn’t answer Mu’s question. Though did it really matter anyway? He was offering her possible assistance with her goal. … Which was stealing the Time Pieces! With them she could undo the crash, make it so Hat Kid’s death never even happened!

“Why would I trust you?” she asked, not daring to get her hopes too high but she _could_ use the help of a powerful being such as Moonjumper. The forest was big, the ship could’ve landed anywhere inside it, searching through it while Hat Kid hunted for her while also avoiding Snatcher wouldn’t be an easy task on her own.

“Because you’d be dead if I hadn’t shielded you from Lukas and Hat Kid. They passed by a while ago, looking to take your soul and eat it. So, would you like to come back to the horizon with me? Maybe we can reach a proper agreement and cause a bit of mayhem, huh?” He grinned at her.

Mu _needed_ the Time Pieces more than ever so… “Okay. But if you try to rob me or anything else I’ll stuff all your organs into a jar.” She probably didn’t stand a chance against him but she sure as hell wasn’t going to let that stop her from threatening him.

“Ohoho, that sounds rather unpleasant even if I don’t really have organs. I shall endeavor to stay on your good side.”


	22. Allies

“We’re not going to find her,” Snatcher said. He’d suspected as much when his sense of Mu had vanished so quickly after she’d run off. Now he was certain because there was no way they wouldn’t have seen her by now if she had tripped and killed herself.

“Why not?” Hat Kid asked, stopping to turn and face him with a frown.

“Because, Moonjumper has her.” It was the most likely scenario and Moonjumper had already tried to use Hat Kid to cause trouble. It had failed due to Snatcher’s intervention but whenever one attempt failed, he _always_ followed it up with another shortly after.

Hat Kid let out an annoyed groan. “What would he even want with her?”

“To manipulate her into causing trouble for us.”

“Why though? And what do we do about it.”

Snatcher had a strong suspicion on why Moonjumper liked causing trouble specifically for him, it wasn’t something he wanted to admit to out loud though, especially to Hat Kid. “I don’t know why, he’s just an asshole. And, I can’t really do anything about it until he comes down again because uh… I can’t get to the horizon.” It was the one place he couldn’t go, not even his pocket dimension could take him there. It was Moonjumper’s dimension so the only way to get there was with his help. It was particularly annoying because it meant Snatcher could never banish him completely no matter what kind of trouble he caused.

Hat Kid sighed dejectedly, her anger at Mu seemingly gone for now. “Sorry for messing that up,” she said after a short pause. “She wouldn’t have been able to run off and stuff if I’d let her get to the trap first like I was supposed to. But I just got so _mad_ when I saw her, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Snatcher waved off her apology. “Most ghosts have that kind of reaction to their killers.” That or fear; in Snatcher’s case it was both. “Let’s just go back to what we were doing before. When Moonjumper and Mu make their move, I’ll deal with it then.” Hopefully it wouldn’t be anything too troublesome.

Hat Kid’s face lit up. “Yes! Contracts!” He’d been teaching her how to write up contracts. She couldn’t make them magically binding yet but knowing how to write them up in a way that would fill or create loopholes as desired came first regardless. With help from him, both in the exact wording and the magic, she’d already written one up that would get a contractor to help making the docking area for her ship. She hadn’t gotten to use it though because the intruder had been Mu.

“I’m going to teach you other law stuff too, you know? It’s not all fun and games.” Even to him, there were times when learning law hadn’t been all that interesting. Though there were many people who would say even what he was teaching her now was boring.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re going to teach me everything you know, right?”

“Apparently so.” He hadn’t signed up for that but it was too late now, he was already starting to. It wasn’t too bad though; it gave him something to do and she was a _very_ smart kid, learning things far faster than he’d predicted. So teaching her wasn’t much of a hassle other than for the fact that she herself was a hassle. But even then it wasn’t as bad as he would’ve thought.

***

The horizon looked to be made of clouds and fog. Clouds above and below and fog all around, never getting closer or further no matter what direction they went in. It was disorienting, unpleasant and made Mu not want to look down at her feet because it looked like she was walking on a damn cloud which shouldn’t have been possible. It _felt_ like walking on a giant beanbag, soft and yielding but also firm.

Moonjumper had made a ‘hole’ in the air in front of them though, looking down at Subcon wherever he pleased. It could even zoom in and everything could be heard through it while supposedly nothing on that side was aware of them. It was currently looking at Hat Kid’s ship.

It was surrounded by magic fire, suspended in the air with black vines over a small crater – presumably where it crashed – and showed clear signs of having been busted up but not as bad as Mu would’ve thought. Perhaps despite Hat Kid’s demise it had been/was being repaired. Inside, according to Moonjumper was the vault, fully intact and filled with Time Pieces. According to him, he couldn’t zoom in that much though so he could be lying. But if he wasn’t, the Time Pieces were almost in Mu’s grasp.

Which was great but… “If the Time Pieces could be used to bring Hat Kid back to life, why hasn’t she done that?” Mu asked, looking back up at Moonjumper. She’d had to tell him her plan and surprisingly he’d seemed to care about her plight, making her feel inclined to trust him even though she maybe shouldn’t. She’d ended up telling him far more than she’d intended to at any rate, the whole entire story in fact, and now he knew basically everything that had lead Mu being here plus a bit more.

“Perhaps one can not use the Time Pieces to bring one’s self back to life,” he said. “Or perhaps she is so used to following the rules on how to use them and was so traumatized by her tragic painful death, she had not even considered using them like that.”

Perhaps or perhaps they couldn’t be used like that or there was a very good reason not to? It couldn’t be attributed to selfishness this time though, that was for sure. So… _perhaps_ Mu’s doubts while lying in bed recovering had been well-founded. Maybe trying to steal the Time Pieces was a mistake, doing so had led to Hat Kid’s _death_ after all and it might not be reversible like she’d thought for a bit there before _really_ thinking about it some more. If so, they might not be able to bring any of the islanders back either or stop the Mafia. And if that was the case … Mu didn’t want to steal them. Maybe she just wanted to go home instead or… try to apologize to Hat Kid and pray she survived that encounter.

“Which is why _you_ should take them and use them,” Moonjumper continued, grinning at her. “Poor Hat Kid has been so miserable since she died. Being a ghost doesn’t seem to be much fun at all. Time travel could bring her back though. You owe it to her to try, right? After all her death was your fault, an accident yes, but often accidents have someone who is at fault for them. Also, if what you say about the Mafia is true, they deserve to be taken down, your friends and family avenged. You owe it to them too, don’t you? Only you can bring them all back and save everyone.”

She… did owe it to everyone to at least try, didn’t she? She’d already thrown so much at this plan and it _was_ her only option to stop the Mafia and avenge her family and all the other islanders. And she’d gotten poor Hat Kid killed trying it, another thing she _needed_ to undo if possible. So, she _couldn’t_ back down now, she _had_ to at least try and go through with it since she still could and was finally in a position to do so. How could she have possibly been considering giving up when she was so close?

So before her doubts could start to resurface again… “Let’s do it. How do we get out of here?”

“Just step through.” Moonjumper gestured at the viewing portal. It had moved to hover above the top of Hat Kid’s ship, facing perpendicular to it.

Mu took a step closer. “Uh… Hat Kid’s currently not in it, is she?” Getting caught by her again would _not_ be good even if she did now have backup.

“Nay, she’s with Lukas… I think. He used his magic to hide her from my senses. I do know she is not on the ship though, otherwise we wouldn’t have such a clear view of it, nor would we be able to hear anything around it.”

Mu had no reason to disbelieve him so… she reached out a hand into the hole in the fog. It wasn’t like pushing through a barrier or anything else but the air around her hand was suddenly much warmer. With how cool the horizon was, it was an odd and uncomfortable sensation. But it was safe so she hopped through, landing on top of Hat Kid’s ship.

She looked back and… there was nothing there, no trace of the portal and horizon at all. Moonjumper appeared out of seemingly thin air, making her almost jump. With a power like that he could spy on anyone at any time and just pop in on them with _no_ warning, not even a sound, spooky. … Not something Mu was going to concern herself with though because they were currently allies.

There was what could only be a hatch, leading into the ship near the front. Mu ran over to it, Moonjumper floating behind her. She turned the lever and viola, it was open. She slid over the edge and dropped down.

The central area was very similar to what she remembered but the ladder and some of the railing was gone. So were the stands with artifact thingies. The little round vacuum was still roving around though; presumably Hat Kid had fixed it because there was no way it survived the crash. Didn’t matter though. She ran past it and up the ramp and around to the vault where she skidded to a halt because…

“It’s probably locked.” She turned to look at Moonjumper again. “Or at least it was _last_ time I tried to get in.” Which had led to _all_ this. “I… doubt that’s changed.” If anything, Hat Kid would’ve improved security on the vault since someone had already tried to steal the Time Pieces and it was closer to the ground now, making getting into the ship even easier.

“No worries. Locks are no match for me.” The chains on Moonjumper’s wrists rattled as he raised his malformed hands. Red string shot out of them, going into the keyhole on the vault. There was a soft click as he turned his hands and pulled the door open.

Mu hopped out of the way of the massive door and poked her head into the vault. It was filled with glittering, glowing Time Pieces. _Lots_ of them, more than she’d even known had come from the ship. It was _glorious_. _Finally_ , she could go back in time and fix _everything_.


	23. Time Pieces

A soft ping came from Hat Kid and instead of paying attention she was suddenly pulling her phone out of the pocket in her ghost cape to look at it. A quick glance and she looked up at Snatcher with a worried expression, cutting off his quip about her looking at her phone before he could even began voicing it.

“Someone just opened the Time Piece vault on my ship,” she said. “But… it doesn’t make sense. I didn’t get an intruder alert. And none of the Subconites would do that, would they? I don’t even know how they opened it; I have the only key on me.”

Some of the Subconites might do something like that and some of those, with the right tools could probably pick the lock. So, it could be one of them, especially since Snatcher didn’t sense anything unusual over in that direction. If that was the case, it would be fine, none of the Subconites would actually use the Time Pieces, they were probably just trying to pull a prank on Hat Kid. But with Moonjumper on the loose and the Time Pieces being as powerful as they were, it wouldn’t be smart to take chances. So instead of replying, Snatcher teleported them straight to Hat Kid’s ship; in the middle of the central room.

Yep, Moonjumper was there, hovering in front of the wide-open vault, his grin implying he’d expected them. Mu was inside, gathering up the Time Pieces into ball.

“Hey!” Hat Kid reacted first, rushing forward as she drew her umbrella.

With a wink, Moonjumper snapped, creating a magic fog wall, extending across the length of the ship, that Hat Kid promptly smacked right into. With an angry huff, she smacked it with her umbrella but nothing happened.

“Back up kid.” Snatcher didn’t wait for her to comply or question him, he just summoned her back to his side to get her out of the way. He then summoned a blast of magic under the wall and then another and… it broke on the third, shattering into a puff of thick fog.

It dissipated just in time for them to see Mu raising a giant ball of Time Pieces above her head. Before Snatcher could blast her or levitate the ball away, she smashed them into the ground at her feet. They shattered into a million twinkling pieces with a loud crash of breaking glass and a blinding flash of light.

The whole ship rattled and jerked before falling, presumably the vines holding it up were gone, sending everyone floating smashing into the ceiling. It hit the ground a second or two later, shaking the whole place in an entirely different way.

Shaking it off, Snatcher looked over at Mu again, keeping track of Moonjumper in his periphery. The Time Pieces had fixed themselves and hovered above her head. “What did you just _do_?” He wasn’t certain what the Time Pieces were capable of but they’d just done _something_ and it almost certainly wasn’t good.

She’d fallen over onto her rear and now righted herself. “I’m fixing everything,” she replied. “I’m going to fix the accident that got Hat Kid killed _and_ the Mafia coming to the island. So don’t you dare…”

“Peck you,” Hat Kid interrupted as she recovered as well. “You _honestly_ pecking think I wouldn’t have used the Time Pieces to bring myself back to life if I could, _really_? And now you’ve gone and brought us to who even _knows_ what pecking time! If I don’t fix this, the entire pecking world could end and it’ll be _your_ _fault_.”

Mu flinched and scowled. Before she could respond though, Moonjumper chimed in. “Oh, the end of the world, huh? I didn’t know that was a possibility.”

Snatcher scowled at him. “You’re an idiot.” Messing with something as powerful as the Time Pieces without extensive study first had to be one of the most idiotic things a person could do.

“No need to be so mean Lukas dear. Messing with stuff one doesn’t know much about is more recklessness than…”

“Shut up and give me back my Time Pieces so I’ can fix this shit,” Hat Kid interrupted, already on the move over there.

“I don’t think I will.” Red strings shot out of both of Moonjumper’s hands, one set wrapping around the ball of Time Pieces, the other Mu. “I will be seeing you two later, we have some things we need to do.”

Snatcher summoned a blast of magic under him but it was too late, he was already shifting into the horizon, bringing the Time Pieces and Mu with him. In anger and frustration, Snatcher summoned another blast anyway, accomplishing absolutely nothing except for make a slight burn mark on the floor underneath where Moonjumper had been.

“What the peck!?” Hat Kid said, throwing her arms out in her own display of useless frustration about where Mu had just been seconds ago. “He can’t just _do_ that, can he?”

Unfortunately, he could and even more unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do about it. The horizon was inaccessible to Snatcher and he had no way to sense when or where the two of them exited it. He should’ve attacked Moonjumper instead of trying to figure out what had happened. Which he still wasn’t sure of so… “What even happened though? When the Time Pieces broke, what did they do or cause or _whatever_?”

Hat Kid turned to face him, crossing her arms with a small huff. “Time travel, to the past because the Time Pieces when broken, can only go back or forward to your starting point if you already used them to go back. To make them bring you forward in time from your starting point or to an alternate timeline, you need a special machine. I don’t know how far back though; it depends on what Mu’s intention was when she broke them if she even had one and wasn’t just throwing them down in a panic. Which I think she _was_ because otherwise she wouldn’t have brought us and the whole damn ship back too. Which also means we’re probably pretty far back because she used all the Time Pieces.”

Snatcher was liking this whole thing less and less with every passing moment. Especially now that he was paying attention, he was sensing a _lot_ of life in the forest, enough that there was no way he could parse all of it. That did _not_ bode well. “And you said this could result in the world ending?” Was that an exaggeration or had she meant it literally?

“Yep. I’ve never personally witnessed it but they taught us about it in school and _really_ hammered it in. Messing with the timeline too much with the Time Pieces could result in all life on the planet ending with lava erupting out everywhere, everything freezing over, or the oceans rising to destroy everything. Or in very rare cases, a mix of two or even all three.”

The ice apocalypse was certainly the worst possibility. As ghosts, lava or the ocean wouldn’t be a huge issue for the two of them, but the same wasn’t true for the Subconites’ bodies and forest. And with everyone else dead, there’d be no new souls wondering in every so often to keep him and Hat Kid going. Not to mention, it’d just be kind of a bummer.

“I’d explain how and why,” Hat Kid continued. “But it’s complicated and would take a long time to. And it doesn’t matter as much as fixing it does. Which I can’t do without the _pecking_ _Time Pieces_. This is _no fair_ , things were finally good again until Mu showed up. And now she did _this_ with pecking Moonjumper? Why can’t they both just jump off a cliff somewhere.” With a huff, she crossed her arms.

Snatcher sighed, crossing his arms in frustration. He was _not_ a fan of this situation; it wasn’t the worst in the world though so there was that. Moonjumper _shouldn’t_ be interested in letting the world end. It was his home too and with everyone dead, he wouldn’t be able to get a new body when it came time for him to need one. Also, it would make causing problems much harder and less fun. He wanted them to squirm though and might be willing to _risk_ the end of the world to make it happen. On the bright side, assuming they all got out of this, he should be satisfied with this little ‘prank’ enough to leave Snatcher alone for a while… hopefully anyway.

“What do we do now?” Hat Kid looked up at him with sad eyes. She didn’t look like she was about to cry though so she’d be okay. She was asking him what to do though and he had _no_ idea. But he was her ‘mentor’ so he had to at least try to be reassuring, right? Because that’s what mentors did and if he was going to be forced to be one, he was going to do it right so…

“We should try to find out how far back in time we are.” Though he was pretty sure it was before Vanessa froze the entire kingdom. How far before though? Hopefully a lot because Snatcher was _not_ interested in possibly seeing his past self or god forbid, witnessing the Big Freeze even if it would be from out here this time. “And then start working on how to get the Time Pieces back from Moonjumper.” Either through force or convincing him to give them back because on rare occasions Moonjumper could actually be reasoned with. Regardless, getting their bearings came first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just letting all y'all know now, don't expect too much from the time travel stuff. It's one of the aspects of the ending I couldn't make as interesting as I'd have liked due to logical constraints I just couldn't ignore. Time travel is just really hard to write, it gets convoluted and messy super fast, especially when there's a really good solid reason not to do it like we have here with the whole 'messing with the timeline too much equals apocalypse' thing that's based off the canon finale of the game.


	24. Stuck

Poking her head out through the hatch on top of the ship, Hat Kid saw something she thought she’d never see with her own eyes. The forest was green and vibrant with life. There were birds twittering somewhere, their song accompanying the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind. Up above, the sky was a vibrant blue, the sun shone down high in the sky. It was amazing!

… Hat Kid had spent too much time solely in Subcon, huh? She’d been too nervous to go out, too busy as well at times. She hadn’t even told any of her other friends she was a ghost now. She _really_ should’ve done that a while ago. … So, as soon as all this was sorted out, she’d ventured out and let everyone know. If any of them didn’t like her anymore as a ghost, that was… fine. But they all had a right to know and she wanted to see them again. For now, though…

She turned her head to look back up at Snatcher; he’d teleported up here. His arms were crossed and he looked very displeased by their surroundings. Subcon wasn’t cursed though which meant… “This is before your crazy ex froze everything.”

“Yep. Let’s just hope it’s a _lot_ before then because trust me when I say it’s _not_ something you want to witness kid.” True and it was also something he didn’t want to witness either for _obvious_ reasons. “And I assume, we’re not allowed to change anything or the world might end, right?”

“Pretty much yeah. So… we can’t stop the thing with Vanessa.” A change that big would probably lead to the timeline destabilizing and thus an apocalypse would occur on the planet. “I’m sorry about that. If we could do it safely then…”

“Shut up kid,” Snatcher interrupted. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s in the past, we can’t change it. We just need to fix this situation and then go home and never think about this again.”

Hat Kid sighed. Being able to time travel _sucked_ when you couldn’t do anything with it without risking the fabric of the world falling apart because of it. They could witness events firsthand and not much more; great for historians, awful for everyone else.

“Let’s figure out what time period we’re in exactly,” she said because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. How were they supposed to get the Time Pieces back when they were in an unreachable place?

“We don’t need to do that,” Snatcher said. “Especially since you’re the one who said changing the timeline could end the world. Before the Big Freeze, ghosts weren’t common in Subcon. The wrong person spotting us could potentially change things. So we should avoid that possibility at all costs.”

He had a point but… that was no fun. Hat Kid never would’ve gone here on her own but given the opportunity by force, she wanted to see for herself what Subcon had been like before everything went to shit because of Vanessa. Surrounded by life and filled with curiosity, she couldn’t even stay as mad as she should’ve been at Mu and Moonjumper. So…

“What else are we going to do though? We can’t get to the horizon to take back the Time Pieces. Are we going to just sit around twiddling our thumbs while we wait for Moonjumper to just give the Time Pieces back to us? There’s unfortunately nothing active we can do to fix that particular problem right now. So, how about we use this as a learning opportunity? You teach me how to shapeshift to help disguise myself so people can’t tell I’m a ghost. And then we walk around maintaining that subterfuge while also learning about the time period we’re in.”

“I doubt you have enough power to shapeshift, it takes more magic than you’d think it would even just to shapeshift legs.” Snatcher was finding more excuses to just sit around. Which _would_ be the smarter move but Hat Kid wasn’t about that kind of thing and neither was he. She knew him well enough by now to know just like her, he should be filled with the need to be doing something even if it wasn’t particularly helpful.

Of course, he probably also didn’t want to go around his beloved forest and see how it _used_ to be. It was likely full of painful memories for him and being here was probably making him uncomfortable. There wasn’t much Hat Kid could do for him though, was there? Which was a real shame after everything he continued to do for her. So maybe she should listen to him. He was officially her mentor after all, basically her guardian at this point. And he was right about avoiding interacting with anyone being a smart move because it _could_ change things, not super likely to be a big deal but not impossible either. Ugh! This sucked!

She groaned, looking around the forest. Without Snatcher’s vines holding it up, the ship had fallen to the forest floor. It wasn’t a long drop though so it should be fine. “It would probably be bad if anyone came across the ship. So can we at least patrol around it and steer anyone who nears it away?” That way she could at least look around a small section of the forest and _maybe_ something would happen.

“I have a better idea.” Snatcher snapped and suddenly they were in his pocket dimension. Still on top of the ship though, he’d somehow brought it in as well. “Now there’s zero chance we’ll affect the timeline in any way.”

Hat Kid groaned but… “Yeah, fine, you’re right. Risking changing things would be _bad_ , especially since we don’t have the Time Pieces.”

He grinned smugly down at her, making her half tempted to throw something at him. Before he could say anything though and make her want to throw something at him even more, she continued.

“We can’t solve the Time Piece and probable apocalypse problem from in here though.”

That killed some of his smugness. “We’ll figure something out.” At least he seemed confident about that so perhaps they would.

***

Part of Mu wanted to be _mad_ at how angry Hat Kid had been at her, especially after she’d just said she’d been trying to _undo_ Hat Kid’s death; she deserved some leniency for trying, right? So she probably would’ve been deeply offended if it wasn’t for the _other_ _thing_ Hat Kid had said, the thing about the end of the world

If that was true, it would certainly explain why Hat Kid was against using the Time Pieces they way Mu wanted to. Why didn’t she say so before though? … Because Mu wouldn’t have believed her; she’d have chalked it up to a lie told to justify Hat Kid being selfish. But… did she believe it _now_? Hat Kid had sounded serious about it _and_ she’d implied if she could, she’d have used the Time Pieces to undo the accident herself, which ruled out her lying due to being selfish.

But… if it _was_ true then Mu couldn’t use the Time Pieces to stop the accident _or_ the Mafia coming to the island or anything else. She didn’t want the world to end, she wanted to make it a better place, to stop all the bad guys and bad things from happening. … What was she supposed to do then? Keep going and hope Hat Kid was wrong or… give up?

She looked up at Moonjumper. He was studying the ball of Time Pieces, seemingly unphased by the predicament they might be in. Heck, when the end of the world had been mentioned, he’d seemed only mildly surprised and possibly interested.

“Do you think they could really end the world,” she asked because who else could she ask stuck here on the horizon surrounded by fog and clouds.

He didn’t look up from studying the Time Pieces. “I don’t know. I’ve never encountered magic like this before, it is quite intriguing. I wouldn’t automatically believe Hat Kid though. While at first glance it may seem being the owner of these must mean she knows all about them: how they work, what all they could be used for, and any pitfalls that might come with their use, that might not actually be the case. She is only a child after all. Children aren’t typically the experts on anything. She may just be drawing conclusions based off of incomplete information. Or perhaps, she’s been lied to. They function as fuel for her ship, correct? Perhaps to prevent her from messing with them, adults lied and told her using them for time travel might result in the world ending. So it’s possible we could use them to fix _everything_ and nothing bad will happen as a result.”

He _kind of_ had a point. They had only Hat Kid’s words to go by and she _could_ theoretically be wrong, right? It was a lot to risk though. … Ugh! Why did everything have to be hard all of a sudden? Mu’s plan had been perfect but the possible dangers of time travel just _had_ to come in and mess it up. It was no fair and all kinds of stupid.

“We will have to test it for ourselves to know for sure,” Moonjumper continued. “In theory, we can go anywhere in the time with these. We can right all the wrongs of the world, starting of course with the Mafia and Hat Kid’s tragic death.”

Mu still wasn’t sure but… he seemed confident that it would be fine. And he was a magical being of some sort, he probably had a better grasp on high magic items like the Time Pieces than she did. … “Are we going to leave Hat Kid and Snatcher here?” She didn’t like that idea but going back to get them would result in a fight, right? Could Moonjumper beat Snatcher? With Hat Kid a ghost Mu probably couldn’t take her so Moonjumper would have to defeat both of them.

“I’m sure they’ll live.” He grinned at his own dumb joke like a moron. “They’ll only try to fight us if we return to them and thus it’s not worth it. Let’s go, shall we?” He gestured to the ball of Time Pieces. “We have some bad guys to take down.”

Well, the longer they delayed the more Mu would want to hesitate and she’d already thrown everything she’d had into this, she couldn’t back down now. So… “Yeah, let’s go.”


	25. Time's End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a bit rushed and the chapter I am most displeased with. It is however the best I could do. I tried like 5-6 times to write something good and this was the best I could do because eventually you just gotta settle on 'good enough' lest it reach a point where it's just not worth the stress to continue trying for something better. That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad though, just not what I wanted it to be. How good or bad it is is up for y'all to decide because I'm too close to it to know truthfully.
> 
> Also, any plot holes created by the time travel stuff, I apologize for. They're nigh on unavoidable when you're messing with time travel.

**[Mu does whatever she does in the game to stop the Mafia from invading the Island and then become the ruler of the world to stop all the bad guys except she has Moonjumper’s help. There’s a whole other potential story here but this isn’t the place to tell it.]**

Mu had done it! Not only had she saved the island from the Mafia, she’d saved the entire world. She was in charge now and could ensure no more bad guys ever hurt anyone ever again. With the Time Pieces and Moonjumper on her side, _no one_ could challenge her. It was _glorious_! Or at least it should’ve been.

Hat Kid’s ship was nowhere to be found. Mu had tried to return to it a few months off of present day to stop the crash but… it wasn’t there. It was very strange and she couldn’t find an explanation for it. Even worse though was the lava that started spreading, pulling Mu’s attention away from that mystery to try to solve the lava problem instead. Which didn’t seem like it _had_ a solution. It wasn’t long before the kingdom she’d built was overrun with it.

She _wanted_ to believe that it wasn’t a big deal, that given enough time, she could fix it. Or that she could just ignore it and it would go away on its own eventually. But… Hat Kid’s words about changing time causing the end of the world came back to her. This certainly seemed pretty apocalyptic.

“I think Hat Kid was right,” she finally said to Moonjumper as they surveyed the spreading lava through one of her castle’s windows. It had slowed down significantly from when it started but it was still only a matter of time before it covered everything.

“I presume, you mean you think she was right about the end of the world,” Moonjumper replied, seemingly indifferent. “That does indeed seem to be the case. Rather interesting. I wonder how that works exactly.”

“It doesn’t matter how it works, how do we _fix_ it?”

Moonjumper shrugged. “Maybe clog the volcanoes.”

“That’s dumb.” Mu didn’t know much about volcanoes and stuff but she knew that wouldn’t work. “You always seem to know what to do.” With the Time Pieces, she could’ve done all this on her own but he’d streamlined the process with his ideas and actual assistance at times. “Help me.”

“I’m afraid the end of the world and preventing it is beyond my level of expertise. Perhaps it is time to figure out space travel. You’d best do it quick though, it doesn’t seem you have long left.”

Mu glared at him. “You sound like you don’t even care.”

“I’m offended at that accusation. Of course I care. I’m just staying calm because getting all worked up won’t fix it.” True but…

“Well then help me come up with a solution. A real one that _works_.” All Mu could think to do was go back to Hat Kid for help. Which she would’ve done expect for the whole Hat Kid’s ship still being missing thing so not only was the crash in impossible to prevent, Hat Kid could also not be found in general. Mu could maybe go back to the point in time she and Moonjumper had left Hat Kid and Snatcher and hope Hat Kid was still there. But that would mean giving up on stopping the crash and everything Mu had worked for would probably be taken away too. Neither of which were options.

“I will think on it.”

“Good! I’m going to get back to getting rid of the bad guys.” Once all the bad guys were gone, all they’d need to do was fix the lava problem and the world would be a much better place.

**[A couple weeks later in which things get worse]**

Mu froze as she strode into the throne room. Moonjumper was sitting on her throne. On one hand, she’d come in here looking for him, but on the other, _why_ was he on her throne? It was _hers_ , she was the ruler here, he just her right hand man.

She took a breath, ready to say something to him about it but… bit back on it. Now wasn’t the time to get mad and start an argument, there were _much_ more important things going on then Moonjumper sitting on her throne. Like how the fire and lava kept getting worse no matter what she tried in the present or in the past via time travel.

What good was ridding the world of all the bad guys if everyone else was going to die in lava too? And everyone was blaming her for it. Normally she would’ve been mad at them – she’d gotten rid of all the bad guys, what right did they have to be mad at her? – but they were right, it was her fault. She’d caused it by meddling with time. Which meant it was her responsibility to fix it and at this point she’d be willing to do almost _anything_ to do so. She was _desperate_ for a solution so she _needed_ Moonjumper’s help because she couldn’t do it herself no matter how hard she tried. … She was just a _kid_ , who could really ask her to come up with a way to undo the apocalypse by herself?

“Greetings Mu,” Moonjumper said with a grin. Was it particularly evil looking today or was that just her imagination?

“Greetings,” she said, imitating him even though it was dumb. “Have you found a way to fix this yet?” Like he’d said he would. Surely he would’ve come to her if he had but… she was desperate. Even just an solid idea would do for now, she just needed _something_.

“Nope, the only way to fix it would be to take the Time Pieces to an expert on them and hope they can fix it.”

“Meaning… Hat Kid huh?” And she was still nowhere to be found in this time or the near past.

“Yep. Though, I suspect, going back and undoing everything we did might fix it as well, that’s presumably what caused it. But other than that, there’s no way to fix it. It is a shame I know but at least we get to go out as rulers of the world, right? Also, it’s not ice killing everyone and destroying the planet so really things aren’t as bad as they could be. _And_ you are getting your wish, soon there will be no more bad guys, so you should be happy, right?”

“No! Good people are dying, I already got rid of all the bad guys.” She’d judged them and now only good people were left. The world would be perfect if it wasn’t for the lava.

Moonjumper grinned even wider. “Dear Mu, you’re so naïve, as long as there are people, there will be bad guys. That is the rule of sentient beings everywhere across time. I would imagine it even transcends our puny little planet.”

“That… that can’t be true.” Surely it was possible to have only good guys like Mu was trying to do. … Except the people she’d judged as ‘good’ were fighting over food and water last she’d saw them, things good people just didn’t do. She could go back in the past and judge them differently but… how long could she keep that up? There were only so many people left, getting rid of more wouldn’t solve anything, would it? _And_ the more she changed things, the faster the lava seemed to spread.

“It is true and you know it. The only way to rid the world of bad guys is for us all to die. Which you yourself have made happen, you even sped the process along with your whole judging thing. You should be happy, not many people can say they’d so thoroughly accomplished their life goals.”

The way he spoke made her sound like a bad guy. Which wasn’t true… was it? She wanted to make the world a better place. She wanted to make sure no one ever suffered the same way she and the islanders had under the hand of the Mafia or anyone like them. But… had she really accomplished that? All she’d done was kill a bunch of people – mostly Mafia but a few others as well – intentionally and cause the unintentional inevitable deaths of literally everyone and everything else… of the whole _planet_ in fact.

That… wasn’t even really what she’d set out to do initially. At the start _all_ she’d wanted to do was stop the Mafia from taking over the Island and save Hat Kid but once she’d started and with all that power, mostly the Time Pieces but Moonjumper’s too… she’d done this instead. She’d thought, making herself ruler and getting rid of all the bad guys would lead to no more suffering but… everyone was suffering even more than they’d been before.

With no place to grow more food, it was quickly growing scarce. Most of the water had boiled away, what little they’d managed to save was quickly depleting. As the lava continued to spread day by day, the room people had to even just _exist_ grew smaller. They all lived in the castle now but even it couldn’t resist the lava for forever even if it was doing a good job so far. And it was _all her fault_ and she _couldn’t fix it_. Which meant…

“Then… then let’s…. go back to where we left Hat Kid,” as a ghost because Mu was supposed to fix that too but _couldn’t_ , “and… ask her to help fix it.” It would mean giving up on everything Mu had worked for but… it had all lead to _this_ and this was the opposite of what she wanted.

“Hmmm… nah, I don’t think I want to.”

“W-what?”

“I don’t want to give up the Time Pieces.” His voice was calm as ever as if he wasn’t talking about letting the world end. “We should go back and steal Hat Kid’s ship instead and try again on another planet. Given enough tries we could probably make something resembling a utopia for a little while at least without also ending the world. It’d be fun to try, don’t you think?” His grin was _definitely_ eviler looking today than it normally was.

“No!” Mu wasn’t going to just let this planet die while there was still a _chance_ save it. “What’s wrong with you?” He’d always sympathized with her before and had never seemed heartless so why this?

“Nothing, you’ve just had a false interpretation of me if you think I would give up this game without a fight.”

‘A fight’? How was Mu supposed to fight him? She was a child and he was a… whatever the hell he was, it was powerful. And… there was no way she could steal the Time Pieces from him, was there? He kept them in the horizon for ‘safekeeping’ because she’d asked him to, not wanting to risk anyone else stealing them after he’d suggested someone might if she’d kept them as her throne pedestal like she’d wanted to do. She’d trusted him! She’d been wrong to do so and now… there was _nothing_ she could do to fix any of this.

She wanted to be angry about it and she should be but… she was just so _tired_. She’d been trying so hard for so long to fix it and make everything better and be a good ruler but it was all for naught. She’d been betrayed and now the world was going to end and it was all _her fault_.

She should’ve listened to Hat Kid at the start then Hat Kid never would’ve died and everything would be… not perfect but not this pecked up either. After the crash she’d even had doubts about the whole thing, she should’ve listened to them. Or heck, she should’ve been the one to die in the crash instead of Hat Kid, the world would literally be a better place if she had and no one could deny that.

Her vision blurring with tears, she shrunk to the floor. Normally she wouldn’t be caught dead crying in front of someone but what did it matter when she and everyone else would be dead in a matter of weeks if not days? Would Moonjumper die though? He was supernatural entity and he had the Time Pieces which was apparently planning on…

“What?” Moonjumper sounded shocked enough to pull Mu’s gaze back up to him. “Why are you crying? You should be mad and you should be attacking me, why are you not?”

“What would be the point? I can’t beat you.” Maybe if she had the use of the Time Pieces she could but she didn’t so it wasn’t worth speculating on. And if she _did_ have them, she wouldn’t have to fight him because she could just leave and fix things herself.

Moonjumper frowned at her before deflating back into the throne with a heavy sigh. “Well I suppose this plan was doomed to fail from the start. You’re a normal child, of course you can’t fight me and you’re smart enough to know that. I should’ve given you a weapon to give you the confidence to try but alas, I didn’t think to and now it is too late. Which means the climax to our game is lacking an epic battle and you sadly don’t get to come out of it feeling like a hero. How… disappointing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This game is no longer fun, I’m done playing. I wanted you to fight me for the Time Pieces, I was planning on letting you win so you could go save the day. But you started crying instead and I can’t handle tears, especially those of a child. For someone who has such a big soft spot for children, Lukas was rather incompetent with them when he was alive so now I am too. He’s a bit better with them now that he has one but he’s not here to ask advice of so I’m left with no choice but to call off this charade.”

Mu stood back up. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. This was confusing. What was his deal? Was he swapping back to her side? Or… what?

With another sigh, Moonjumper used his strings to pull the ball of Time Pieces out of the horizon. “Let’s go ask Hat Kid to fix the mess we made, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does the stuff Moonjumper said about what he wanted to happen count as breaking the 4th wall? Because that's what *I* wanted to have happen. Initially I was thinking the ending would be Mu controlled by Moonjumper's strings vs Snatcher and Hat Kid in an epic battle but then they ended up getting left in the past. I maybe could've wriggled my way out of that but then I had the thought that Mu could fully redeem herself and change her mind and decide all on her own to give up on everything she worked for to save the world. But in the game during her boss battle, she's using the Time Pieces to fight. She can't fight super well without them, making a battle against Moonjumper hopeless for her and she's smart enough to see that. He would've let her win of course because of the reasons he stated in the fic but her attacking him anyway just didn't make sense. I tried very hard to make it work, having her be frustrated and angry enough to not care that she was 'doomed to lose', but it just wasn't working after how desperate she was to fix her mistake. But if she had the Time Pieces she wouldn't have to fight Moonjumper because she could just use them to go back on her own and thus still no fight. So I settled on this as the best I could do. As stated in the top note, I don't know how good or bad it is, but it's definitely the best I could do and that's all I and all y'all can ask of me.


	26. Mess

Snatcher watched Hat Kid float back and forth across the length of the ship’s central room. She’d been doing so since they’d double checked and confirmed that there wasn’t even a single Time Piece left in the vault, meaning they were for sure trapped here. Especially since there was no way Moonjumper and Mu were still around. This was without a doubt the most annoying thing Moonjumper had ever done, next time Snatcher saw him, he was in for it for sure.

Annoyed by her pacing even if it had only been going on for a few minutes, Snatcher reached out and patted Hat Kid’s head next time she passed close enough for him to do so. “Chill out kiddo,” he said as she stopped to look at him. “It’ll be fine.” Probably anyway.

She frowned at him. “It’s unlike you to lie to try to be comforting.”

Snatcher scoffed. “As if I’d do that. No, I’m just telling you it’ll probably be fine so there’s no need to be so that way about.” He made a vague gesture at her. “Watching you pace is annoying.” And was stressing him out too which was the last thing he needed or wanted right now.

“What the peck? The pecking world could end! And we’re stuck in the past, unable to do anything about it. And it’s a time before your crazy ex froze everything, if we’re stuck here long enough, we’re going to have to deal with _that_ unless you want to stay here in your pocket dimension for forever. So it’s very much looking like things _aren’t_ going to be fine.”

That wasn’t a thought Snatcher needed to have. He _would_ rather stay here then see the Big Freeze happen again. But his point still stood. “Only truly insane people would want the world to end. I know Moonjumper doesn’t want that and while I don’t know Mu, I doubt she would either. So they’ll come crawling back eventually, asking you to clean up their mess.” … Hopefully anyway. Something could happen to prevent them from doing so or they could put it off until it was too late. Or maybe Snatcher didn’t know Moonjumper as well as he thought he did and maybe he really wouldn’t mind the world ending for one his dumb games.

Hat Kid frowned up at him for a few seconds before sighing. “I guess that’s possible. It feels wrong to just sit here _waiting_ for that though. There’s nothing else we can do though, huh? But if we’re waiting for them to come back, shouldn’t we do that not in your pocket dimension? Unless Moonjumper can find us here after all. And if we want him to find us, I should probably take this off, right?” She gestured to her bracelet.

“Uh… yeah. I was about to say that myself.” He didn’t want to hang out in the living forest though, dammit. But she was right, it’d be better to wait out there where they could be found by Moonjumper and pray he and Mu returned soon. If they never came back though… that was a bridge Snatcher would cross if and when they got there.

***

“Ah, there they are!” Moonjumper said as Snatcher and Hat Kid appeared in the forest out of thin air. Watching from the horizon, Mu and Moonjumper were still invisible to them but their sudden appearance made Mu flinch a little anyways.

“Now,” Moonjumper continued, turning to look at her, “you’re going to lie and tell them you had fight me to get the Time Pieces back.”

“Why?” Mu just wanted the end of the world to be fixed, why go through the trouble of anything else?

“Because that would’ve been a more exciting way for the game to end and how it was supposed to. But it will also make you look better in their eyes and thus they should be less likely to kill you.” Oh right, yeah, that was still as possibility. “So lie and tell them we had an epic glorious battle where you came out on top and are thus returning to them as a hero.”

“I’m _not_ a hero though.” She’d _tried_ to be but had failed so miserably she’d become a villain instead. “I’m just… giving up and hoping Hat Kid can still fix it.” If she couldn’t then… it wasn’t really worth thinking about.

Moonjumper sighed. “Yes, but you were supposed to be. If you’d just gotten angry and challenged me like I’d wanted then this would’ve been the truth. It would’ve made for a grand story. And it would’ve also been better for you and for that I apologize.” He gave her a slight bow.

Mu glared at him because she was still mad at him. “You’re insane.” But she had to do what he said, right? Hat Kid and Snatcher might be willing to spare her life if they thought she’d done something heroic to get the Time Pieces back to them. … Maybe things would’ve been better if things had gone the way Moonjumper had wanted because then Mu wouldn’t have to add ‘lying to make herself look good and save herself’ to her already lengthy list of sins.

Moonjumper grinned. “That’s what people tell me. Now you ready to lie and manipulate a couple soul eating ghosts into letting you live?”

No but she’d never feel ready and the sooner she got it over with, the better so… “Yeah.”

***

It was still bright and sunshiny in the forest as they appeared in it once more. Hat Kid was excited to see the forest alive and well despite the circumstances. They’d have to be careful not be seen by anyone but that wasn’t a real worry. Snatcher was a good teacher; she could hide and sneak around like a champ.

“No wondering off,” Snatcher said, using his serious voice. “We’re not here for fun so you’re staying by my side the whole time, got it?”

She wouldn’t have wanted to leave his side anyway. Given their surroundings, this probably wasn’t a pleasant place for him to be. _And_ splitting up just wouldn’t be a smart idea in general and would serve no purpose. So the fact that he thought she might wonder off on her own was honestly borderline insulting. “Yeah, Dad, I got it, okay? I won’t wonder off.”

He froze half turned away from her before snapping to look at her again. “W-what did you just call me?”

Wait, what had she just called him? … Oh no! “It was a joke.” Yep, totally a joke, not a slip of the metaphorical tongue at all.

“It better have been because I’m your mentor, _not_ your dad, they’re different.” Not really by a whole lot though, right? But then again, Hat Kid didn’t know much about dads so maybe they _were_ vastly different. Regardless, he willing admitted to being her mentor now which was nice. They were making progress. “I guess for now let’s find a place to…”

“Uh… Hat Kid.”

She snapped around to see Mu stepping out from behind a tree. She looked haggard and worn; her hair and clothing a mess, bags under her eyes and a slight red puffiness to her face that might’ve been evidence of tears not too long ago. She had the Time Pieces, holding them in a ball with one hand. Snatcher had been right, nothing else would explain this. That didn’t mean Hat Kid was happy to see her… though it combined with Mu’s pitiful state made it hard to be mad at her.

“Sorry,” she said almost shyly as she stepped closer. “You were right. The world was ending and… stuff. Moonjumper was… okay with that so I uh… had to fight him to steal the Time Pieces back. You can fix it though, right? Please, I don’t want the world to end.”

“Probably.” Hat Kid had had proper use of the Time Pieces drilled into her for as long a she could remember, even before they’d properly began teaching her how to pilot. “That depends on how badly you pecked up the timeline though. Now give them to me.” She held out her hand, giving Mu her best angry look.

She hesitated to come closer though, looking up at Snatcher and then at Hat Kid again. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you?”

“If you don’t give us the Time Pieces, we will,” Snatcher said.

“Fair enough, I guess.” She walked over and surrender the Time Pieces at last. … What had happened to make her so willing to give them up? Lots of stuff clearly, the beginning of the end of the world for one. Being betrayed by someone she’d probably thought was a friend and having to fight him for another, meaning she’d gotten a taste of her own betrayal medicine at last. Hat Kid _almost_ felt sorry for her. Under different circumstances she might have but almost everything bad that had happened here was entirely the fault of Mu’s deliberate actions. So sympathy was a bit of a tall order after she’d also gotten Hat Kid killed.

What to do with her though? Kill her for her soul like Hat Kid had wanted to do when first seeing her again? Let her go because she wasn’t worth it? Or something else? … Didn’t really matter right now because Hat Kid had to fix the mess she’d made first.

“First,” she said, looking up at Snatcher and ignoring Mu for now, “we need to get back on my ship and return to present day. Then I can fix it.” Probably anyway, if it was beyond fixing… she’d figure out what to do from there if that proved to be the case.

Snatcher snapped and suddenly Hat Kid’s ship was back in the real world. “Make it fast, I want out of here.”


	27. Clean Up

Hat Kid’s insistence on getting the ship back up into orbit before returning to present day despite the troubles of getting it off the ground proved to be the right call because judging based off the view through the window, the world was engulfed in flame and lava. It didn’t even look like the same planet anymore. At least it wasn’t ice though, right? As far as Snatcher was concerned that’d be the worst possible way for the world to end.

“See?” Mu said. “I tried to fix it but I couldn’t no matter what I tried.”

“You _caused_ it,” Hat Kid said with a glare, making Mu flinch. “And now _I_ have to fix it. I’ll be right back.” She threw down the Time Pieces again and vanished in a flash of light.

Snatcher opened his mouth to say something not very nice to Mu but before he could the view from the window changed again. With another flash of light, the lava was suddenly gone, replaced by the normal view of the planet. A half second later Hat Kid reappeared right where she’d been before. “That was fast,” he said instead.

“To you maybe. It took _ages_ for me. I had to undo _everything_ Mu did and she and Moonjumper did a lot of shit.” She shot another glare at Mu. She didn’t say anything to her yet though. Instead she floated past her, presumably heading to the vault to put the Time Pieces away. Snatcher followed, if possible he was going to put his own lock on the vault door to prevent Moonjumper from getting into it again.

After putting the Time Pieces in, Hat Kid didn’t close it right away, instead she looked up at him. “What do I do about Mu? I was going to kill her but… now I’m not sure. I don’t like her and I’m still mad about _everything_ she did but also… she changed sides and returned the Time Pieces to us. She even supposedly fought Moonjumper to do so, right? So it’d be wrong to kill her after that, wouldn’t it?”

“Wrong or not, she killed you so as far as I and most ghosts are concerned, that gives you the right to kill her back. You don’t have to though, it’s your choice.” If Snatcher were in her situation, he’d probably have killed Mu but if she wanted to show a little bit of mercy, that was fine too. Mu was her killer so it was her choice to make. “You could let her go or you could have her sign your contract and _then_ kill her once it’s done or just kill her now, it doesn’t matter to me.”

Hat Kid’s face let up. “I could make her sign my contract, huh? She is the latest intruder after all and you promised me the latest intruder. I’ll make her do all my evil dirty work and then betray her at the end and kill her to eat her soul. … Or maybe just let her go. I’m allowed to do that, right?”

“Yeah, it’s basically what I did with you.”

“After I beat you up with an umbrella.”

“You were just lucky that potion made me vulnerable. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to do anything to me and I would’ve killed you then and there.” Would he have though? … Yeah, just because he wouldn’t do it now didn’t mean he wouldn’t have back then. Which in hindsight was bit messed up but whatever, they were both long past that.

She giggled. “That just makes it worse because it was you who made the potions, you should’ve known they’d do that.”

True, he should’ve known but somehow hadn’t. In his defense though, the potions were relatively new to his arsenal and no one but her had ever thought to try to use them against him. “Yeah, whatever. Just go deal with Mu already. Have her sign your contract or eat her soul now, or whatever, I don’t care.” He snapped his fingers, summoning the contract he’d helped her write up. It would give her possession of the soul of whoever signed it and everything.

She hesitated for a couple seconds before grabbing it. “I’m going to make her do my evil bidding. Thank you for reminding me of that.” She then slammed the vault door closed before floating off where Mu was still nervously waiting.

Snatcher turned towards the vault to place his hand on it. He’d never used his magic on a door before but theoretically if he could prevent Moonjumper from spying on the Subconites and Hat Kid, he could Moonjumper-proof the vault door too, hopefully anyway.

“Have you officially adopted her yet?” … Speak of the devil.

Snatcher snapped around to face Moonjumper who’d opened a window to the horizon and was leaning out of it, his hands on the edge. He wore a large cocky grin on his face as he hadn’t almost just caused the literal end of the world.

_Not_ in the mood to deal with his nonsense anymore today, Snatcher summoned a magic blast underneath him. But of course like the bastard he was, he vanished all the way back into the horizon right before it could hit him.

“Well,” he said, poking his head out from behind Snatcher again. “I shall take that as a ‘no’ then. But you should really get…”

Snatcher summoned an exploding potion, throwing into his face faster than he could run away.

“Ouch,” he said as the puff of blue cleared, revealing he’d been splattered in the remnants of the potion. “I don’t like that. But I suppose if you don’t want to talk, I’ll just…” He ducked back into the horizon to avoid another potion, his portal vanishing just in time for it to hit the vault door instead.

“Was that Moonjumper?” Hat Kid asked as she pulled herself back up onto the walkway.

“Yeah, I think he’s gone now though.” Unfortunately. Not that Snatcher had ever been able to do much harm to him anyway but a chance to try again would’ve been nice.

“Good! He’s a peck-neck! But uh… anyway, Mu signed the contract! Look at this!” She lifted her hat and pulled out what was presumably Mu’s soul. “It’s mine! Isn’t that cool?”

“Good job kiddo, you got your first soul contractor. Don’t mess it up.”

“I won’t! It’ll be so much fun!” She was far more excited about it than Snatcher had been about his first soul contract – still cursed with the last vestiges of his morality, he’d felt a little bad about it at the time. If she kept this up she’d be a proper evil ghost in no time. … He was a real bad influence on her, huh? Oh well, he didn’t care, she’d already been a little evil before anyway, he was only bringing it out of her more. Which was just fine with him and honestly, having someone else willing and able to protect the forest while he was away or busy could only be a good thing. She couldn’t yet but given enough time and guidance from him she would and he was looking forward to that day.

***

Even if Mu couldn’t quite make out Snatcher and Hat Kid’s words, she could still hear the excitement in Hat Kid’s voice. She was undoubtedly telling Snatcher – her adoptive father according to Moonjumper – about Mu signing her soul contract. Mu had considered refusing but there was a not zero percent chance that that would’ve led to Hat Kid killing her instead. And… she hadn’t had the energy to argue about it. So, she’d signed away her soul to a ghost who reportedly ate souls, how wonderful.

She sighed as she looked out the window again. The world was back to normal at least, no more lava everywhere, that’s what mattered most. She… kind of deserved to pay for almost destroying, right? She could help build Hat Kid’s ship dock in the Forest, there was no way that could be that bad, right? The whole doing Hat Kid’s ‘evil bidding’ part of the contract was a bit more ambiguous though but again it shouldn’t be too bad because Hat Kid wasn’t _that_ evil… right? So it would _probably_ be fine. …

Unless Hat Kid decided to kill her after the contract was complete. Isn’t that what Snatcher did to his contractors? … Well, it was too late to do anything about that possibility now. She could only hope Hat Kid would choose to merciful and for now just be happy the world was no longer ending.


	28. Epilogue

Being able to send Mu out for mechanical parts and related stuff was invaluable for building the space ship dock _and_ resulted in Hat Kid being able to repair the ship a bit better. It took three whole months to finish with Snatcher’s help moving all the big pieces – he grumbled about it the whole time of course because he enjoyed being like that – which was quicker than Hat Kid had estimated. Though if it was actually fast or not, she wasn’t sure; the book about it in her library didn’t say how long it should take. But it was finally done even if end result looked clunky and nowhere near as sleek and pretty as the docks in Hat Kid’s former home or other planets she’d visited. But it was functional and had its own junkyard-esque charm to it so it was fine.

“Now what?” Mu asked from behind her. “It’s done, right? And that means I fulfilled my end of the contract. So what does that mean for me?”

Hat Kid turned to face her. She’d thought about this a lot over the last three months and hadn’t made a decision. If she wanted to be like Snatcher, she’d betray Mu now; kill her and then eat her soul. Which she _was_ tempted to do. It had been a bit since she’d last eaten a soul – though really not that long because she may have occasionally also sent Mu out to lure Mafia goons into the forest for her to snatch their souls - and she still wasn’t fond of Mu after she’d gotten her killed even if being a ghost turned out to be not so bad. But also… they’d been friends once upon a time and Mu felt bad about everything she’d done and was rather miserable about it. Hat Kid pitied her a little, enough to maybe consider letting her live. But _should_ she? … Ugh, she didn’t have any more time to think about it.

Did she want her first soul contract to end with letting the contractor go? That wouldn’t be any fun at all. But… did she want to eat a former friend’s soul? … Given the nature of their falling out and what it led to, she was indifferent about that. _But_ did she want to eat a soul of another kid? … No, she didn’t. No one should die that young, especially in a way that allowed for nothing of them to remain. So…

She pulled out Mu’s soul. Warm and bright in her hand, it looked great, almost making her mouth do the ghost version of water. “Yep, the contract is complete,” she said as she let it go, banishing the temptation to change her mind. “So you’re free to go. Get out of the forest and never come back, I don’t want to see you around here anymore.”

Mu gasped as her soul returned to her body. “Uh… okay. Thank you.” She then turned and ran. “Oh and Moonjumper’s right, Snatcher’s totally your dad,” she shouted back over her shoulder.

As soon as she was out of sight, Snatcher slid out of the shadows he was hiding in as Hat Kid had suspected, she’d even guessed the approximate right location. “I’m surprised you let her go.” Was he not going to say anything about her departing words? Was he really going to pretend he hadn’t heard them? … Oh well, Hat Kid wasn’t sure what she thought about that idea either so she’d play along and ignore it as well.

Instead, she shrugged. “No one deserves to die when they’re still a kid. And eating her soul would mean she wouldn’t even get a chance to be a ghost. So I let her go. You disappointed?”

“No, it was your choice to make. But what are you going to do now that you dock is finished?”

“I don’t know. I can come and go as I please with little to no trouble now which is awesome. So I guess I should go out on a space adventure sometime soon. Would you be interested in coming with me?” She looked up at him with her cutest smile. “It’d be a short one of course because we can’t leave the forest unprotected for too long. But it could still be fun, right?” He was her mentor, he was teaching her a lot and showing her so much, she wanted to return the favor sometime and share a bit of her world and what she knew with him if he’d let her.

He hesitated, frowning a little. Which meant he wanted to say ‘yes’ but didn’t want to admit it. “Maybe.” Yep, for him that was a definite ‘yes’. “But only because I’m interested in seeing another planet. Only a fool wouldn’t be so don’t take it as me agreeing to go on an adventure with you or anything of that nature. Being trapped with you on a tiny spaceship sounds like an awful time but I might be willing to put up with it for a little while.” Yeah right, with how much time he spent with her these days, it wouldn’t be an issue at all especially if they brought some of the Subconites along for extra company. It’d be so much more fun and less lonely than the adventures she’d gone on before, she almost couldn’t wait for it.

***

Mu skidded to halt as Moonjumper appeared out of thin air a few feet in front of her. He’d come to talk to her multiple times since everything had been fixed, always when Hat Kid wasn’t around, so it wasn’t surprising to see him. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to offer a fast trip to wherever you wish to go and to offer you a final farewell if that is what you desire of me.” As if he’d actually listen to her if she said she didn’t want to ever see him again. That was all up to him, Mu didn’t really care anymore but she _refused_ to ever let him talk her into doing anything ever again.

“Fine, I’ll take the free transport.” Because she wanted out of here as soon as possible.

Moonjumper opened a portal to the horizon, gesturing a welcome as she stepped through it. He slipped in after her and closed it. “Where to? The island? Or perhaps you wish to start a new life elsewhere?”

Mu had been planning on going back to the island, it had always been her home and she hadn’t thought of going anywhere else but now that Moonjumper mentioned other possibilities… she didn’t _have_ to, did she? She _could_ choose to live somewhere else, abandon the island to the Mafia, which she’d already done anyway since she couldn’t get rid of them. She could go somewhere entirely new and start all over. Or she could go back to the village just outside Subcon, the Doctor had offered her a place to stay after all… surely she would welcome her back, right?

“Need some time to consider?” Moonjumper asked.

“I uh… yeah, I suppose I do.” She suddenly had so many more options than she’d thought, it was a tough choice to be presented with.

“Very well, you have all the time in the world so consider carefully. I’ll wait. Remember it doesn’t have to be a permeant choice, you can always change your mind and go elsewhere at basically any time so don’t stress too much about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And at long last, it's over! Yay!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who read and commented, I really appreciate it! This is my first successful long fic in like 3+ years, I've tried to write several in that time and they all ended up failing for one reason or another. I was beginning to worry that long fics weren't something I could do anymore. So I'm really glad I could finish this one and that overall it turned out well and that so many people enjoyed it. :)
> 
> It's possible I might write a sequel. It'd be one shots of stuff that happens after this, more of that Dadcher goodness because their dynamic in this fic was so much fun to write, Mu and Moonjumper stuff, Bow arriving looking for Hat Kid, and other such things. I can't promise anything though so don't hold your breath.


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